
Equilibrium 




r 



FARRAR 



am 



w£&$&££m 



Equilibrium 



OR 



Meetings 



OF THE 



Sphinx Club 

By 

Charles F. Farrar 



1906 
Printed" for the Author 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Gooies Received 

APR 28 1906 

C<i Pyi*tit Entry 

cuss €L XXc. No 

OOPY B 



at 






Copyright 1905 

BY 

Charles F. Farrar- 



PRESS OF E. A. JOHNSON & CO. 
PROVIDENCE, R. I. 



Introductory 



Kind Reader, you may have an idle wish to know, 
Why this my feeble attempt to sow 
Seeds of Nature in a " cultured " soil, 
Where unnurtured they must die, thus foil 
The power of a fact. 

This story is culled from ancient lore ; 
Socrates, Plato, Solon, 'tis to mese I soar. 
Comrades of Truth and Nature, they can tell, 
Secrets of life on which man s mind should dwell, 
Think, then act. 

Their words do hut the course of Nature trace, 
Through all the ages of this human race, 
Follow this tribes course and that one's to its close, 
Victory's triumph, defeat's carnage and dark repose, 
Or let History teach. 



IV 

Tis a simple lesson that a child could learn, 
False flush of pride on victory's hrow to hum, 
And know cold death the vanquished doth reward, 
These extremes should work with one accord, 
Not one the other overreach. 

For from victory and defeat conscience was horn, 
A nohle offspring, sunbeam from the dawn, 
Placed in man's heart to guide aright 
His faltering footsteps to me beacon light, 
On wisdom's golden gate. 

To Nature we belong, and in a natural way 
We must live and hold at bay 
Our passions, which, at times so wild, 
Controlled, governed and made mild, 
Learn to love, forget to hate. 

C. F. F. 



Chapter I 



^4^^~S WO men were walking down a street 
■ *■ J in an old New England town, one 
^^^ of those old villages in grand Old 
New England that has given up all of her 
young men, and all the things that go to make 
up life in a community, given up all these to 
the nearby city of trouble and care, which has 
taken all the bright jewels, the treasures of 
home life, the very humanity of the human 
family as it used to be in the old days, and left 
only the old people to die and the town to go 
to decay. 

The two men, evidently just arrived from 
the city, made their way to what was once an 
old town hall, surrounded by great elms, and 
with a generous lawn dotted here and there 
with shrubs and flowering plants ; a small 
snake-like river wound its serene way through 
the village, but had to stop when it came to 
this beautiful spot and smile with nature, and 



in stopping here, it formed a fair-sized pond at 
the west side of the old hall, and then hurried 
on to dash through the remains of an old water 
wheel, part of the ancient grist mill long in 
disuse at the lower end of the town. The men 
walked up the gravel path to the old hall, 
opened the door and were welcomed in by a 
middle-aged janitor. 

The interior of this building was one large 
hall, very high studded. The walls were adorn- 
ed with pictures of Alexander the Great, Julius 
Caesar, Alfred the Great, the Black Prince, 
famous son of the third Edward of England ; 
the great Dukes of Marlborough and Welling- 
ton looked down from out of solid oak frames ; 
Frederick the Great of Prussia and the "Man 
of Destiny" the Great Napoleon, were there 
also; George Washington held the place of 
honor in a very large gold frame over the huge 
fireplace; on pedestals were the busts of the 
great Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Lord Bacon 
and others, renowned in literature and art. The 
furniture was of old colonial style. Around the 
entire room was a library of books of every 



description, ancient and modern, such was the 
abode of the Sphinx Club. The two men 
sat down in the spacious chairs wheeled into 
a circle composed of five other men who would 
strike the beholder as exceptionally intelligent. 
The two last to sit down — of one it would be 
said he was a prosperous man of the world. 
He was young, fair-haired, with blue eyes, a 
strong face denoting high culture and strong 
will. This man was Cyril Payne, having an 
easy-going nature, though at times quite sar- 
castic, his club mates called him by his Chris- 
tian name. The other was Richard Plantag- 
enet ; that he was a direct descendant of the 
Lion Heart is not known, but all who knew 
him would say that he had no weak heart in 
defending the right against the wrong, but as 
we all have the strain of Adam's blood run- 
ning through our veins, he was of the same 
blood as Richard the First of England. He was 
addressed as Richard by his fellows ; this using 
of his given name was due in part to Cyril's 
constant use of it, and in part to often calling 
on him for information on all subjects that 



8 

came up for discussion. He was dark com- 
plexioned and had a face and figure like Oli- 
ver Wendell Holmes' "Brahmin" New Eng- 
land school master. 

"Now here we have our wise men," said one 
of the five. "What we were discussing was 
insincerity." 

"Insincerity is a virtue, or I should say a 
modern virtue, one of the twentieth century 
slogans," observed Cyril. 

"That explains the reason you are al- 
ways talking 'double,' " said Richard, 
"what I mean is that you will say one 
thing and mean another, so much, in 
fact, that I don't know half the time what 
to think of your words as they in nowise coin- 
cide with your actions. You will say that it is 
'utter folly' to give to a beggar, as we have in- 
stitutions for their care, pay men large sal- 
aries to take care of them, and so on. Still, you 
are the first to give to these people, as I will 
prove. The other day, as we were walking 
down the street, we met an old, and to all ap- 



9 

pearances, infirm man, who requested a little 
help. You were the first to fish out a coin. 

"I then and there made up my mind to catch 
you, and straightway, when we parted, I went 
back and asked the bootblacks and newsboys 
where this old fellow lived, and got all the 
information that I wished for, not only his his- 
tory and address, but the social status of all 
others that came into the boys' imaginations. 
Well, I followed the boys' directions in regard 
to the old man's home, and even as I located 
the place the old man appeared on the scene, 
made his way to the door of a fine looking 
apartment house and pushed the bell. 

"A clean elderly lady answered saying, 'Hel- 
lo, George, done well today?' He nodded his 
head and passed in. Well, I promptly went up 
to the door. The same lady answered my call.* 
I happened to have a book with me. I pre- 
tended to be a book agent. She asked me in, 
and I stepped into as fine a parlor as you have 
at your home. The lady said she would call 
George. She had no need as George came into 
the room at once, as fine and healthv looking 



10 

an individual as you would wish to see., about 
middle-aged, gray hair, blue eyes. He had evi- 
dently dropped his make-up suddenly as I 
could see some dirty marks around his eyes. 
Well, I actually sold the book for one dollar, 
George 'panning' out the dollar. And so here 
is your half dollar that you gave this old de- 
ceiver, the other half I will keep to pay for the 
investigation." 

"Well," said Cyril, "I don't see but that you 
have proved what I said in the first place was 
correct, namely, that insincerity is a modern 
virtue, and you have also sold a one-dollar- 
and-a-half book for one dollar, which makes 
you fifty cents out instead of me." And Cyril 
laughed. "I tell you this is an insincere age 
that our country is passing through, and the 
sooner we get on the other side of it the bet- 
ter. Xow let me bore you with a couple of 
instances of crying injustice. Suppose a young 
man falls in love and shows it, as some of them 
do. The girl takes all kind of advantages of 
him, as everybody else does. He is looked upon 
as an easv mark. His friends meet him and sav. 



II 

r Saw you having a jolly time last night and 
you didn't know it either, so now fellows he 
must treat.' And away goes a couple of dol- 
lars. He goes to the florist who says as he 
smiles blandly, 'Oh ! yes, I know, the boys told 
me so. I will send her something nice,' and 
the bill comes in for ten dollars. He goes into 
a jewelry store and is met with, 'Oh ! yes, 
for a young lady?' and the young man tries 
to answer 'yes.' It costs him fifty dollars. And 
chocolates ! Well, the candy makers are all 
millionaires with a house in Xew York and a 
villa in Newport, and he is their prey. And 
during all this robbery the girl, perceiving 
that she has him 'stuck' will make him jealous 
'just for fun.' And this is all because he is 
sincere. Poor young man ! 

"And what happens to the business man if 
he takes everything sincerely? I need hardly 
say failure. Suppose a business man starts 
out on a morning to take everything and every- 
body sincerely, what would happen? Why, he 
would have all his 'friends,' his neighbors, 
and all the drummers in creation at his door, 



12 

trying to sell him all the rubbish that they had 
in stock for years, and all the gold bricks in 
the country." 

"Enough of that," said Richard. "Please 
tell me if there has been a great deed done in 
any age that has not been accomplished by 
sincere people? Has any great act been done 
that is not the result of sincere endeavor? A 
large number of acts have been done through 
selfish ends, but the doer was sincere. The 
great Xapoleon was a very sincere person, he 
was a man who had every confidence in him- 
self, sincere confidence, and he was in my esti- 
mation the greatest man the world has ever 
seen, he is the mightiest example of sincerity 
that I could hold up to you, a man of small 
statue, education limited, but a man of power- 
fully sincere purposes. He came from Cor- 
sica, of humble parents, a mixture of Greek 
and French. He came alone and captured 
France and for fifteen years made her the most 
powerful nation in Europe, and planted his 
iron hand on all nations who rose up against 
him. To be sure he did not hold his power 



*3 

long, but it was not his fault, but the fault of 
his people, and even the great Napoleon could 
not alter the Nation's make-up, all he could 
do was to show them the way and for a time 
compel them to follow it, but no mortal man 
could hold a whole nation in the palm of his 
hand, and of course the greatest general had 
to go down when the nation turned false to 
him." 

"Oh! yes," said Cyril, "that's all right, but 
that is ancient history. Sincerity was every- 
thing in the eighteenth century. If a man called 
his neighbor a liar he would have to fight to 
the death with swords, pistols, or knives, but 
now if a man calls another a hard name the 
other fellow laughs and tells his friend how 
so-and-so made a fool of himself down town 
today, all the while this same fellow would 
like to kick the other fellow across the street 
or knock his head against the sidewalk. This 
comes, I believe, from the desire to get all the 
gold each and every man can grasp, and also 
from a very large percentage of cowardice." 

"I agree with you on the percentage of 



14 

cowardice in the average man of the twentieth 
century," said Richard. "I think Edmond 
Burke is entirely right when he says 'terror 
is the common stock of all emotions,' and ter- 
ror is about sixty per cent, of the feelings of 
the average man. This man is suffering from 
too much education. He knows too much(?) 
about life and death, so much that he is terror 
stricken if death is thought of. He is not so 
sure of himself as was his ignorant brother of 
the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. He 
claims to know so much about evolution, so 
much about the science of life, and the fact is 
he does not know any more than his brother of 
the sixteenth century. A great English histo- 
rian unconsciously agrees with me on this point 
when he says that the autocratic rule of the 
kings and clergy and barons at this time was 
the best thing for man at this stage of his de- 
velopment. There is the very same stage of de- 
velopment going on in every child and man in 
the world today. Do they not come into this 
world without any knowledge of it? There is 
hardly any need for me to dwell on the false 



15 

idea he has about the improvements he has 
made. I claim he has not made any. I would 
refer you to my former arguments. Even such 
as look like new ideas you will find upon in- 
vestigation were well known to the ancient 
Greeks and Romans, or long before them. 
Some modern discoveries were even in use in 
the 'stone age.' Some of the wisest sages 
will prove what I am saying and in the next 
breath tell me what a wonderful age of learn- 
ing we are living in. It is very much like our 
hand-writing experts and our experts in chem- 
istry giving evidence at a modern trial. 
One expert has just the same degree of intel- 
ligence and learning as the other. Still, one 
will say a handkerchief is blood-stained and 
the other will declare it is iron rust, or some 
other substance. And the learned writer 
will vouch for a signature and his equally 
learned brother will swear that it is 
false. It is the same with the medical pro- 
fession. Two doctors graduated from the same 
college, have the same high standard of train- 
ing, call them to a patient at different times, 



i6 

one will say that the patient has diphtheria 
and the other will say it is typhoid. And so it 
is amongst our scientific men. They have built 
a 'Tower of Babel' that they cannot complete 
because of the 'confusion of tongues,' or, as 
I put it, 'confusion of knowledge'. 

"Speaking of the fact that there is nothing 
new under the sun, I ran across an article in 
a modern publication telling a wonderful tale 
of the millions of new forms of fish-life in the 
depths of the ocean. Now this is only another 
case in point showing the wonderfully short- 
sightedness of some of our learned men. Those 
wonderfully formed deep-sea fishes, or mama- 
lias, call them what you will, that these fel- 
lows are bringing to the surface, were common 
property of our prehistoric fathers — accord- 
ing to the Darwinians — and also found 
amongst the ancient Chinee, in drawings or 
sketches of time immemorial, and brought 
down to the present day art-work of the Chi- 
naman. 

"These people are one of the oldest nations 
on the face of the earth, and at the same time 



17 

they rarely adopt anything new, consequently 
never left the old way of doing things, and it 
is thus reasonable to suppose that these draw- 
ings were handed down to them, taken from 
life by their prehistoric fathers. And we have 
as I said before, also the evolution theory to 
prove this same fact, and I may add that in 
diggings in what is supposed to be the land of 
the cave men, our searchers after prehistoric 
information have found drawings of wild 
looking birds and mamalias evidently made by 
the cave men from life. 

"Some of the wild fantastic scribblings of 
the North American Indians suggest prehis- 
toric animals, fishes, and birds to me, as their 
writings suggest their Asiatic origin. It has 
been said that they are one of the lost tribes of 
Israel by men, who connected their writings 
with that of the ancient Hebrews, but it is 
very evident that they are Asiatic. 

"Compare some of the living creatures with 
the fossil of prehistoric mamalias. Take the 
elephant for instance. The mammoth is said 
to be progenitor of the elephant of today, but 



i8 

I believe that there were elephants on this 
earth at the same time that the mammoths were 
here. They were two distinct species of the 
same animal. The reason we have no mam- 
moths now is that nature has no further use 
for them. She let them die out in favor of the 
elephant. It is the old law of the survival of 
the fittest of each species of animals. Talking 
of elephants puts me in mind of an item I 
saw in a paper the other day wherein it said 
there had just been an operation performed on 
a young elephant to remove his corns that had 
become very annoying to him since his cap- 
tivity. He had been out of the African jungle 
less than a year. Now in the natural home of 
this poor beast it had no such trouble, for he 
would have been free to roam through the 
soft woods and plains for four hundred years 
or more and not have had so much as a corn 
on his foot, but less than a year's abode in 
civilizatidn and his feet are covered with them. 
Like his keeper's feet, no doubt, for there are 
very few men who do not have corns, caused 
foy tramping on concrete sidewalks and cob- 



19 

ble stones and the like. Men of late have adopt- 
ed rubber heels and soles, which only make a 
bad matter worse, and are also using rubber- 
tired vehicles in their feeble attempt to get 
back to the dear-old-mother-earth footease. 

"Well, to get back to Darwin again. I can- 
not see where he gets his idea of man descend- 
ing from a monkey or some such animal. I 
believe that man has always existed as man 
since creation. What perceptible difference is 
there in physical man of the present day and 
physical man since he learned to write about 
himself — I mean since the time of our earliest 
historians ? Or take it later, even in the Alex- 
andrian age about seven hundred years B. C. 
That was a great age of learning, I may be 
pardoned in adding. The city of Alexandria 
alone had a library of seven hundred thousand 
volumes. This would make some modern cities 
proud to own, and contemplate if you can 
what an irreparable loss civilization sustained 
at the wanton destruction of this gigantic col- 
lection of ancient knowledge. Well, physical 
man has not changed since then, not one iota, 



20 

and mentally very little. Now if man was 
changing there would be a notable change in 
nearly three thousand years. I could go back 
further than this but it would be the same. 
Man has not changed physically in four thou- 
sand years as a race or as a species of animal. 
Man is a very delicate and easily deranged 
organism, and it stands to reason if he was 
changing he would show it somewhat at the 
end of all these years. The only change tak- 
ing place in man is the temporary changes that 
circumstances drive him to for a couple of 
generations. The follies he falls into so easily 
in one generation he usually abhors in the next 
generation or so. He always gets back to 
where he started from physically. Breeding 
has a good deal to do with this, as the tall man 
weds a short woman, the sickly man weds a 
robust healthy woman, and the thin man a 
fat woman, and vice versa, this being so or- 
dained by nature, as the tall man sees more to 
admire in the short woman by reason of his 
tallness. It is that inborn desire to get what is 
forbidden us handed down from Mother Eve 



21 

so long ago. And the offspring of these unions 
are normal human beings as a rule. Then also 
when a husband goes wrong the wife is good 
by contrast, as bad makes good. If we had no 
evil by what standard could we judge good? 
Nature corrects the deformed man in her own 
good time, if she has anything to work on. if 
she has not then he goes to the dust and is no 
more. It so happens that whole races of men, 
after being wasted by their excesses, are thus 
weighed in the balance and found wanting, 
then they go down before a greater race, as 
did the nations of old repeatedly." 

"Now we have another question that before 
you gentlemen arrived we were talking over," 
said Franklin. "How does our present civili- 
zation compare with that of the fourteenth 
to the eighteenth centuries ? Can you not help 
us a little on this?" 

"Is our civilization to be compared with that 
of the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries? 
From my point of view a comparison would 
be in favor of the earlier centuries," said Rich- 
ard. "We are far behind the Medieval era, so 



22 

far in fact that I marvel that more sensible 
people have not declared themselves before 
this. We are far behind them in culture, great 
literature, and great art, have no place in the 
make-up of the modern world or the present 
twentieth century. Real art still stays with 
Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, and the old 
Greeks and Romans ; great literature died with 
Shakespeare, Milton — of course Longfellow, 
Holmes, and Hawthorne resurrected it in the 
new world, but we have no such men nowa- 
days. All that is written now is sensational 
nonsense, something to fire the imagination of 
the misguided masses. Look around. Can you 
find a satisfied man, woman or child? No need 
of me to ask. The trouble lies in too much 
excitement, too much short-lived literature, 
nothing lasting, no food for thought or reason. 
And art, all we make nowadays to call art, is 
flashing lithographs that are here today and 
gone tomorrow. I could go on, and cry down 
this wild civilization." 

"Well now, Richard," said Cyril, "don't 
you think you are putting it too hard? What 



23 

do you say about our mechanical improve- 
ments? Think of Stevenson, Fulton, Morse, 
and our electrical inventors, are they not great 
men?" 

"Oh ! yes," answered Richard, "they were 
great men, and no doubt good Christian men, 
but do you know, my friend, that these same 
men have done more to take men from the 
Christian religion than almost any other group 
of men you could name ? You want the reason ? 
Well, here it is. They have taken men far away 
from nature and from nature's God. By in- 
venting the steam locomotive men have been 
hurled hundreds of miles in as many minutes ; 
they have been drawn from one hot bed of sin 
and disease to another with but a passing 
glimpse of God's world, the woods, the green 
fields, the mountains. All they can think of is 
rush for gold in the hot cities. They have no 
time to rest the train starts them off, the tele- 
graphs, the telephone, the high speed engines, 
in all walks of life, keep them going until they 
drop in their tracks unprepared for the great 
Beyond. Take the factories, the mills. The 



24 

owners are trying to cut the price of produc- 
tion by getting the highest speed out of every 
machine — and what is there in any man-made 
machine to make the operator think of the 
great future? If the same man was out under 
the great canopy of Heaven he would have 
to think once in a while at least of the great 
power that made him." 

"What you say is undoubtedly true to a 
greater or lesser extent," said Cyril. ''You 
will agree with me that there is nothing under 
the sun that is not composed of animal or 
vegetable life. Even the iron that made the 
engines you speak of. the telegraph, the tele- 
phone, all these metals are mined out of mother 
earth, so why is not a person in the different 
occupations as near to nature as the farmer? 
What the masses need is education." 

"It is useless," said Richard, "to argue this 
matter any longer. You are descending to the 
ridiculous in saying that the masses must be 
educated, which you know is impossible. Have 
not wiser men than you said the same thing 
years ago? And are we any nearer a solution 



25 

of the problem than we were a hundred years 
ago? No, we are not and in fact, we are far- 
ther away, as I have been trying to tell you." 

"But look here," exclaimed Cyril. "Have 
we not more colleges, a hundred-fold more 
than we had a hundred years back? Have we 
not ninety-five per cent, more men and women 
that can read and write today than a hundred 
years ago? Do not these facts speak for them- 
selves?" 

"Agreed," answered Richard, "that we have 
more schools and colleges, and perhaps have 
ninety-five per cent, more people who can read 
and write their own name. What matters it if a 
youth or old man can read and write the Eng- 
lish language if he cannot make any sense out 
of it ? Where are your deep thinkers of today ? 
Please show me a single one to compare with 
Shakespeare. What good does so much edu- 
cation do to such people as these that cannot 
reason, that have no judgment, that have not 
the capacity to digest even Robinson Crusoe? 
It is only a few of the boys who go to college 
that you ever hear from again. Some die of 



26 



brain fever, caused by over-study, the brain 
not having the clear reasoning power that it 
ought to have if the poor boy is going to learn 
anything. The young man is undoubtedly the 
scion of a rich family who has been left to 
the care of an ignorant maid. He has not been 
allowed the company of his parents or child 
friends, and consequently his brain lies unde- 
veloped, not in the least way prepared for its 
work later on. Some children are fortunate 
enough to have one intelligent person within 
reach, this child if there is anything in him 
will make his mark, but he is one in a hundred 
thousand. Environment is a great thing in the 
early make-up of a young boy, that is where 
the Medieval knight had the best of our 
would-be high cultured citizen of today. 

"Some of the highly cultured wait around 
for the 'old man to kick the bucket' and still 
others abuse their learning by misleading the 
less intelligent masses. For instance, crime is 
held up to us as a beacon light. Its most har- 
rowing details are exposed to our view in 
glaring headlines on our modern newspaper. 



21 

It is written up by corps of writers especially 
drilled to cater to the morbid and evil-minded. 
The more revolting the crime, the more times 
the details are repeated on the front page. You 
must say these writers are learned, no doubt 
they are graduates from Harvard or Yale, or 
some other great college. They have a great 
education, but what do they do with it, barter 
it for a mess of pottage. It would be far bet- 
ter for the world if these fellows, who use the 
Instruments of Light to darken men's minds, 
were left in complete ignorance. Their nat- 
ural ability would make them good citizens, 
but give them the delicate tools to work with 
and they spoil the whole mould." 

"Well," said Cyril, "you have a nice argu- 
ment, but I fail to see where we are going to 
better ourselves. According to you we are 
retrograding instead of going ahead, as all our 
historians say. Are all these fellows wrong? 
If so, how can we believe former chronicles ?" 

"I base my argument on conditions as they 
are, no matter who says this or that is not 
right," replied Richard. "Can you not in your 



28 

inner mind agree with me on the question of 
education ?" 

"Yes, and no," answered Cyril. "I will have 
to put it that way. What you said regarding 
the scion of a rich family is without doubt true 
but the great majority of the people that can 
read and write can understand Robinson Cru- 
soe and lots of other literature." 

"Not so," said Richard. "I say they cannot 
understand Robinson Crusoe, or will not; 
with a large number of persons it is that they 
cannot, with others, they will not. People at 
the age of twenty-five are either strong-willed 
or weak. The strong-willed person will run 
over this kind of literature and throw it down 
with the remark 'kindergarten' and grab a 
blood and thunder novel and go into raptures 
over it. The weak one will look it over and 
could not tell why Crusoe called his man 'Fri- 
day.' Now the reasonable one, the man with 
common sense, that 'most uncommon sense' as 
Ben Franklin says, would read it all, and give 
you a sensible reason for every action of Ro- 
binson Crusoe's. That's the way to digest a 



29 

book that has gone down through the ages, 
alive with interest for every boy who is to 
make an impression on this old world." 

Here Richard crossed his legs and lighted a 
fresh cigar, saying as he did so, "Gentlemen, 
I have finished my rambling for this meeting. 
Hope that you have been able to glean a little 
wheat from so much dross ; you will probably 
not gather as much as did Ruth in the field 
of Boaz, but it is not because I have not tried 
to leave a sheaf here and there. If you are 
still without a few solid grains of truth, it is 
because I could not give them, as I have done 
my best." 

"Yes," said Franklin, "you have put some 
things in a very strange light, but I don't 
think you were very far from the naked truth. 
If men will look at some of the absurdities 
that the public are forced to live under at the 
present day, in their true light, there are a 
good many who w T ill agree with you. Cyril 
has also distinguished himself this time, and 
we have reason to congratulate ourselves that 
we have two such members of this club to call 



30 

on for information pertaining to the emanci- 
pation of men from the deadly rush of modern 
life. We will be pleased to have the valued 
opinion of Mr. Graham, our latest member on 
the discussion." 

"Well, of course," said Graham, "the club 
was organized for the purpose of learning the 
best way to live and enjoy the good things of 
life and enjoy them in the best way possible. 
We are all trying to get at this great secret, 
and while I think Richard and Cyril are a lit- 
tle wild at times, in the main I agree with 
them. This is the only way I see of helping the 
people out of the mire they have fallen into. 
Perhaps Mr. Wheeler will give us his opin- 
ion on the subject also." 

Mr. Wheeler arose, saying: 

"Well, gentlemen, I think Richard has cov- 
ered the ground pretty well, and I do not 
doubt that he will do more to help make the 
way plainer to plain people, and thus raise 
them up for more enlightenment. We must 
dispel all false illusions before we can get at 
the truth of matter. This the club is trying to 



3i 

do. In the first place Richard and Cyril have 
attacked what to them and to the club appear 
to be false doctrines. These we have attacked 
and will ultimately down, but it will be a very 
hard struggle for a handful of men to down 
so-called new ideas and new improvements. 
They seem to be bred in the bone as surely 
as insincerity is included in modern civili- 
zation. It will take more brilliant arguments 
and more writings to instill into the modern 
mind that we can live without so much false- 
ness, but we must show the faults before we 
can help the faulty." 

"Can we not hear from Mr. Venner?" asked 
Cyril. 

Mr. Yenner arose saying: "Cyril has asked 
my opinion. All that I can say is that we 
have all got a lot to learn." 

"I have gotten things so mixed up I really 
don't know where I stand on the matter," 
drawled the last remaining member, and he 
yawned and promptly fell asleep in his chair. 

"I think," said Cyril, "we had better ad- 
journ this meeting indefinitely." 



32 

"Oh! no!" exclaimed Mr. Wheeler, "we 
will not give up what has already been accom- 
plished by reason of two members not showing 
the interest they should at once. These fellows 
have studied with us but have not yet grasped 
the theme of this discussion. They will be able 
to out-do us perhaps in a short time. Mean- 
while I will put them through a course of 
training that will at least keep them awake. 
Next week we shall all study Burke, Ruskin 
and Darwin. These will broaden their ideas. 
But we must be careful to regulate these 
boys' tuition or they will be as bad as some of 
the men of learning and no knowledge that 
we have been discussing." 



Chapter II 



XT WAS a beautiful afternoon late in 
September. The sun was well over 
in the west, giving a golden edge 
to the shrubs and giant elms in the grounds of 
the old hall of the Sphinx Club. The grass 
took on a darker green ; the gravel walks even 
seemed paved with pearls and diamonds in 
the glow of the waning sun ; the air was clear 
and refreshing; such a day only as one will 
find in grand Old New England in the late 
summer. 

The members of the club had gathered un- 
der the spreading elm trees, as was their wont 
at this time of the year. Seated on a rustic 
settee were Messrs. Franklin, Wheeler and 
Graham. Cyril occupied a part of the garden 
wheelbarrow, Richard sat on the moss covered 
stump of an ancient maple, Air. Yenner sat 
very upright in the only rustic chair on the 
grounds, while the "last remaining member" 



34 

reclined in a luxurious hammock smoking 
cigarettes and yawning at intervals. 

"As the formalities," said Graham, "of call- 
ing the meetings of this club to order are never 
indulged in since we have no officers, it is the 
privilege of each member to ask another to 
express his opinions on the subject under dis- 
cussion. I will ask Richard to tell us something 
more about our 'modern improvements' and 
what they may lead to; whether they be for 
the good or evil import in their workings for 
man and his needs." 

"Great riches," said Wheeler, "are one of 
the contending elements of society also." 

"And I think," said Franklin, "individual 
man is counting for less and less in this whirl- 
wind of rapid transit civilization. These 
questions, I hope, will be taken up at some 
length this afternoon." 

"Mr. Venner and I," said Cyril, "are going 
to ask questions as usual, with the permission 
of the speaker." Venner said he would be a 
good listener anyway. 

A yawn and a volume of smoke from the 



35 

direction of the hammock assured the company 
that this member was not quite asleep as yet. 

"As you fellows call on me so often," said 
Richard, "I have developed a desire to shirk 
a little and can only treat the subjects brought 
up briefly as I have no memorandum nor data, 
but will endeavor to show some of the evils 
of too much 'improving' or abnormal develop- 
ment, and we know that great riches have 
always upset the equilibrium of all races of 
men. Another well-known fact is that the in- 
dividual man loses his individuality as the per 
cent of unholy and wicked practices increase 
in his daily life. 

"Modern improvements, so-called, are at the 
expense of physical man. Farming, for in- 
stance, is being so simplified that one man can 
cultivate one hundred acres in the western 
plains with the aid of modern machinery, when 
ten acres would be more than he could do 
with the old farming implements, that made 
brain and muscle, that made reverence for the 
laws of nature and of man, kept down the 
baser elements in the human animal by arduous 



36 

labor as it was meant to be. If one man does 
the work of every ten, supplies that ten with 
food, which is all that man actually needs, or 
is possible for him to have, what do the idle 
ones do ? They get together in large numbers, 
build a city and establish a 'commerce,' or 
trade, or gamble over the products of the few 
farmers, set up a code of laws and try to keep 
each other from breaking them. Some of them 
try to get all the land in sight within the city 
limits to enable them to gamble a little harder 
than their fellows. Another class finds a min- 
eral in the earth, shows it to somebody else; 
this person thinks it nice and they barter over 
it, cheat each other and then cheat other men 
who wish some of it. Thus is produced the 
maze of endless cheating, gambling and rob- 
bing which is carried on under the head of 
'legitimate business.' 

"How well the ancient Greeks knew the 
evil of commercialism is shown vividly in 
their naming one of their most important di- 
vinities as the god of eloquence, commerce and 
robbers ! These triplets have been together 



37 

since their birth. It is impossible to separate 
them. What does this continual wrestling and 
wrangling do to man ? It dwarfs him physically 
mentally and morally. Man not using his mus- 
cles, nature takes them away. Man using his 
mind for base schemes surely degrades it, he 
leaves it open to ever}' evil wind that blows." 

"I believe," said Cyril, "you said some time 
ago that physical man did not change." 

"You must not," answered Richard, "forget 
the fact that I am not talking about the whole 
world, but a large and misguided part. There 
will still be enough left somewhere on our 
globe to jump down on this mass of confusion 
and blot it out as of yore when the time comes. 
You recall, do you not, the 'temporary changes' 
I mentioned? A hundred years is little in the 
building of a nation — and man, as his abilities 
to use his strength diminish tries to make a 
device or 'improvement' to help him in his 
weakness, and in so doing he creates a want in 
another direction more vital than the first de- 
ficiency, and I may here state that improve- 
ments at this time are caused bv the loss of 



38 

nature's blessings, she having taken away such 
as he failed to make a just and proper use of. 
This is one of the laws of nature that man can- 
not overcome in the least semblance, in fact it 
is impossible to trangress the laws of nature 
without paying the penalty sooner or later. 
Then as we know absolutely that this is so, 
why do we not live as nature directs and enjoy 
the good things of life, instead of doing things 
that are sure to bring discontent and short 
life as nature's revenge. 

"Now the human existence on this planet 
is not for the purpose of torment in some form 
or another. As conditions are today the av- 
erage civilized human being has to take two- 
thirds evil with every dose of good. This is 
not as it should be. Well, now, as we certainly 
know that man can only have what he can eat 
and drink and wear, everything else is super- 
ficial and unnecessary and of no use to him, 
thus his needs can easily be provided for. This 
great truth that man's needs are simple is the 
great secret of the human happiness on this 
earth, and the sooner this is inculcated into the 



39 

minds and hearts of the people, the sooner we 
will have a contented and happy population of 
strong, noble and long-lived men. 'Of what use 
to a man if he win the whole world and lose his 
own soul?' Why have the care and constant 
worry of great houses and great equipages? 
It is more ennobling to work with the hands 
than to work with the brain constantly in 
such small matters as caring for a house in the 
city, a house in the country, a house at the sea- 
shore, with their endless regime demanded by 
the devil's constitution called 'style.' Use your 
brain for this and such like nonsense and you 
have no room for the great thoughts that up- 
lift humanity. This is one of the chief causes 
of man's losing his soul. He allows these cares 
to quench what little real manhood the business 
life has left in him. 'Fill your measure full 
of chafT and there is no room for the grain.' 

"Most men become specialists at maturity 
in the line of thought that they have been 
driven to or voluntarily adopted. People say 
'so and so is born to such a profession.' This 
is a relic of the old time superstition. Each and 



40 

every one of us is born to each and every one 
of the 'professions.' No person ever looked on 
a master painting without a desire to do like- 
wise if he could. No person ever gazed upon a 
great architectural triumph without a desire 
to create himself if it were his opportunity. He 
knows what one man can do he can do under 
like training to a greater or lesser degree, if 
he be a normal man. It is these mean little 
things that luxurious living creates, to destroy 
a man's capacity to do great things, thus the 
reason for people saying 'he was born to it,' 
when they see the result of Napoleonic hard 
work. There was no more systematic worker 
than this man. He could not do little things 
because he did so many to make the perfect 
whole that man could not see the small achieve- 
ments that resulted in the crowning victory. 
If Napoleon had been an artist he would have 
been a master, because he would have worked 
hard to bring out every detail to a symmetrical 
conclusion. If Napoleon had been an architect 
he would have been a great architect, doing 



4i 

his work with the same precision as he mar- 
shalled his army. 

"It is needless for me to recall to memory 
any part of the countless great nations that 
have been crushed into the earth as a result 
of their extravagant man-killing excesses, 
brought about by the building of great cities 
and the collecting by the populations thereof 
of great riches, and a consequent greater num- 
ber of diseases caused by idle hands. Brave 
men in disuse soon become cowards. Great 
luxury and great riches should be unknown. 
What is all this display of riches and jewelry? 
What are these diamonds, these rubies, these 
great castles with their gorgeous equipments, 
elegant grounds, their expensive autos, their 
gilded turn-outs? It is because you and I have 
put a price on these things, put a value on 
them. We consider them 'par excellence.' We 
might just as well put our valued opinion on 
things of practical use. Better make necklaces 
and dog collars of coal. Diamonds are of no 
use. We cannot eat them, neither can we derive 
heat in winter from them. But you can warm 



42 

your cold body with coal. Diamonds are use- 
less carbon, coal is useful carbon. 

"Man should be his own valet, his own far- 
mer, his own workman. I read a glowing ac- 
count of some of our millionaires finding an 
isolated spot down on the coast of the Sunny 
South cut off from the cities and towns, where 
they can go and 'hide away' from the cares 
of business life. They have no telephone and 
telgraph lines, no railroads, so no market re- 
ports or telegrams can come to break into the 
'millionaires' paradise,' and the writer goes on 
to say that the millionaires go boating, fishing 
and hunting, lie in the hammocks and idly 
while away the time in the cool shade, or play 
outdoor games, etc. 

"Here you can readily see that a millionaire 
cannot have any more real pleasure than you 
and I might have right in this country town. 
We can go fishing, hunting, boating, and come 
back with a better appetite than these men who 
do not do enough of the right kind of work 
to keep their digestive organs in good order. 
When a man wins a million or so he is used up- 



43 

physically. He has won a lot of gold and paid 
for it with his health. In his attempt to cheat 
nature he finds he himself is the one who is 
cheated. He builds a great house in one of our 
large cities, collects everything money can buy, 
puts it into the house. Just as he thinks he is 
going to enjoy his hard or otherwise earned 
dollars nature steps in and demands her own 
and he is no more. What becomes of the great 
house or castle he has built? It does not suit 
the fastidious ideas of his self-indulgent off- 
spring. They sell the great paintings, the great 
plate, and all the wonderful things along with 
the estate. It gets into other hands, is pulled 
to pieces. This great work of this great man 
is torn into shreds, and not one stone of this 
great costly pile is left one upon another, that 
this man gave his whole life in building. He 
and all his work is forgotten in a generation. 
Is the price worth paying? Is it not as easy to 
eat from a china plate as from a silver one? 
The food will taste as good to a man with a 
healthy body. 

"It is due to the mistaken idea that man has 



44 

as to the fitness of things. His ideas of ad- 
vancement are wrong, but he cannot see it be- 
cause he is so susceptible to fads. The ravish- 
ing delight of a new sensation intoxicates him, 
blinds his reason and destroys his common 
sense. He sees only the surface of things. He 
does not care to investigate for himself, and 
thus fails of his birthright. If he only knew 
that the height of human attainment in this 
world is to arrive at simplicity, he would live 
right and enjoy the world as it was meant he 
should. 

"My ideal civilization would no doubt ap- 
pear as ridiculous as did the Wooden Horse of 
ancient Troy to the common mind. As I know 
that man's needs are simple, so would be my 
civilization. It was Socrates who said 'To be 
simple in one's needs is to be like unto the 
gods.' Socrates, Plato, Solon, these great 
Greek philosophers championed the simple life 
as man's salvation. John Milton advocated the 
same, as did Ruskin and our own 'Platonic' 
Emerson. 



45 

"All great nations have been stricken down 
in their youth or early manhood, as it was at 
this period of their existence that they became 
artificial, fell away from nature, where they 
got their power, and thus lost all. My men 
would live near to nature's heart at once and 
for all time. Everything that man has on his 
table comes from the ground, this being so 
he can supply himself. There will be little 
need of the evil business or 'commercialism' 
as it is carried on at the present time. The in- 
dividual man would have found himself out; 
crime and disease would be stamped out. 

"One of the great producers of moral and 
physical degeneration in this age is the fact 
of man's losing his individuality. For example : 
he gets into one of our large cities, stands on 
the curb in a main thoroughfare and watches 
the surging to and fro of the crowd. Of how 
little consequence he is to the world is forced 
upon him with tremendous power. He forgets 
that the world was made for him and that he 
is the noblest of all God's work. He starts 
breaking the laws of humanity, because he says 



4 6 

to himself, 'I am no one anyway, and I can do 
as I please and no one will be the wiser. No 
one knows me in this great crowd.' And thus 
the restraint of the country town and of home 
and friends is gone and he is only curbed by 
the police into cat-like observance of the laws. 
He does not live within the laws from a desire 
to be honest as he would if he were in his 
native town. This is the wicked worm that is 
eating at the vitals of our people. Man in a 
large city will do a multitude of evil things 
that he would not dream of in the country. It 
is the same old demon that caused the de- 
struction of every nation at a certain stage in 
its development. They 'harden their hearts 
against the Lord,' or rather, throw reason and 
common sense to the winds and undertake to 
live against all healthful laws contrary to 
nature, leaving themselves open to destruction 
at the hands of the 'Barbarians of the North' 
as did the great and glorious Empire of the 
Romans." 

"Accordingly," remarked Cyril, "we must 
all become primitive cave men or barbarous 



47 

children of the wild wood to live in accord- 
ance with your ideas." 

"Do not put it that way," answered Richard, 
"get down to the happy medium. What I hold 
as the best for humanity is that state that 
always follows the great wars, the great de- 
struction of life and property ; the recon- 
struction period, the creating of a desire to 
build up again on solid foundations that which 
has been ruthlessly torn asunder, the result 
of a great victory to a nation. Each and every 
man feels solid, feels that he can build his 
home and country on a rock now that he has 
won lasting peace. It is the same grand feeling 
that the pioneer has as he hews his home out 
of the forest. He feels that he is doing some- 
thing worthy of a strong and noble man, and 
he is. It is that period of life we call youth in 
nations. That is the ideal condition of which I 
speak. We must not go beyond this stage. We 
can have art, literature and all the good things 
necessary to a high intellectual development, 
but we must give the animal body work to do 
to keep it up with the development of the mind. 



4 8 

The mind and the body must work together 
as it was meant to be. Each can run ahead of 
the other for a time only to be brought back 
at a terrible cost. Such as one great people 
crushing out the life of another as history 
repeatedly records. When the mind gets ab- 
normal in its development it becomes corrupt 
and rends the puny body with every kind of 
evil passion until both perish in the common 
ruin." 

"You recall, do you not," asked Cyril, 
"Dante, Napoleon, Carlisle — Milton was blind, 
the little monk who caused the first Crusade — 
these were great men, but not great in bodily 
strength. I could speak of others." 

"Exceptions, my dear Cyril," said Richard, 
"there are exceptions to all rules. I judge from 
the texture of the whole people. These ex- 
ceptions we call philosophers, geniuses, they 
are our wise men. But we must work out the 
problems for the whole people. You cannot 
make philosophers out of a hundred million 
souls. They are nature's children all, and but 
a rare few can see nature more clearly. Thus 



49 

we have Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Carlisle, 
etc., but even these are not of our thoughtless 
age. 

"Carlisle once said 'There are millions of 
people in Great Britian, mostly fools.' This 
sage philosopher could have explained himself 
more clearly if he had said that the people were 
blind to nature's gifts, causing them much 
useless suffering by huddling millions into 
small areas, such as London, leaving large 
tracts of land practically unoccupied. There 
was no more ardent lover of nature than Car- 
lisle. He lived in close communion with her 
while tilling the fields of his rural home. What 
he said about England I could say of America. 
We have thousands of acres of unused land 
and millions of people packed into our cities 
wasting their manhood and losing their heri- 
tage in their vain worship of Mammon." 

As the occupant of the hammock had arisen 
to a sitting position Richard paused and look- 
ing at him said, "Mr. Brown, express yourself. 
We will all be pleased to hear from you, as I 



50 

judge from your looks you wish to say some- 
thing on the subject." 

"I wish to say," said Brown, "that civilized 
men have forever been trying to better their 
condition. It matters not where you find them, 
in palace or hovel, at the goal or far behind in 
life's race. In this case I think I should quote 
the old adage 'Where ignorance is bliss it is 
folly to be wise.' Man can know too much. He 
can know too much of one subject by not 
having enough of the counteracting knowledge 
to evenly balance him. In modern civilization 
the goal is gaul and wormwood, victory is 
defeat, man's highest aims end in grief. So he 
keeps forever seeking light, and he will until 
lie finds it, God bless him. False prophets arise 
on every hand. He follows them as long as they 
can hold out any light in his direction. Some 
he drops at once, but others dazzle him and he 
follows blindly until he runs against a stone 
wall. There is that unattainable something that 
keeps the human mind and body unsatisfied. 
I believe if civilized man would heed nature's 
laws, adhere to honesty in all things, live up to 



5i 

his conscience complete, he would answer the 
unattainable with the word attained. The goal 
would be a goal indeed, and victory would be 
victory." 

"True words, well spoken," said Richard. 

"If a man live up to the teachings of his con- 
science he will live up to the laws of nature, 
as conscience is the natural instructor of this 
human race. Well, gentlemen, I move we go 
into executive session for half an hour, have a 
smoke talk and adjourn." 

The move was seconded, and the vote was 
unanimous in favor of the motion. 



Chapter III 



IT WAS a cool evening in the fall, 
one of those evenings that drives 
the New England villager against 
his will to seek the warmth of the house at an 
early hour, for at this time of the year it is 
not only cold, but the sun sets early. The 
heavens darken and the general aspect of the 
frost-bitten earth is uninviting for an after 
dark vigil. The members of the Sphinx Club 
came into the old hall one by one, threw off 
their outer coats and drew up to the huge 
fireplace, the red glow of the fire casting a 
beautiful light on their faces, and silhouetting 
their figures far back against the ancient wall. 
Cyril was the last to enter the door and re- 
move his great coat. As he did so he gazed 
at his friends in front of the fireplace, the 
easy, graceful pose of Richard, the stiff and 
erect Mr. Venner, the reclining Brown, the 



53 

easy-going Graham, the listening attitude of 
Wheeler, the conservative Franklin. Glancing 
from his friends he followed their shadows to 
the walls, gazing at them for a moment, he 
said, "My friends, allow me to become a little 
prophetic this evening. As I see Richard's 
shadow over-cast the bust of the great Shakes- 
peare, so let his fame shine with that of this 
greatest of scholars of human nature, and the 
fame of Mr. Venner can shut out that of 
Dante as easily as his shadow covers the bust 
of this black minded hermit. Brown will have 
to liven up in order to cover the dashing repu- 
tation of the famous Black Prince, won on 
the bloody field of Crescy, as his shadow ex- 
tends over the surface of the picture of this 
noble prince. Graham must overshadow 
Frederick the Great. You can readily do this, 
get into a scrape with the women. Now I see 
Wheeler must eclipse Alfred the Great. This 
is no easy task, as this man did more for the 
English-speaking race than any before or since 
him. His translation of the Bible alone puts 
him far in advance of all other great men. 



54 

Well, Wheeler, your shadow covers but a 
small portion of this great King's portrait, so 
I will let you off easy. Franklin's task is a 
great one if he is to outshine Julius Caesar. 
There, there, old fellow, don't shift your posi- 
tion, it may be easier to accomplish your task 
than you think. Perhaps you have already 
done your work. I believe a man living an 
honest existence as you are has completely 
overshadowed this ambitious man. His work 
has gone, buried with him, and all we have is 
a memory. With you we have a just man, 
an honest citizen, and a living man, of far 
more power at the present moment than a 
thousand dead Caesars." 

Cyril had now moved to the vacant chair 
awaiting him. 

"I take exceptions to your prophetic vision," 
said Richard. "As I was the first victim I 
will be the first to condemn you, for I know 
I am the greatest sufferer. To compare me 
with Shakespeare is to compare a toad with an 
elephant." 

"And I," said Venner, "would make a very 



55 

poor figure to be gazed at by future genera- 
tions, beside the dark, passionate, sublime 
Dante. Perhaps I am a victim of women's 
wiles, but I could not put up such a kick 
against them as did this king of dreamers." 

Brown yawned, stretched himself, saying, 
"I would not exert one muscle to become a 
dozen Black Princes." 

"It is hardly fair for you to give me the 
task of telling some young lady she is 'too 
fat,' " said Graham. "I could not condemn 
thousands of innocent human beings to death 
for the fun of 'sassing' three women." 

"In my case," said Wheeler, "if I succeed 
in translating the views as put forth by the 
Sphinx Club to my own understanding, I will 
be perfectly satisfied with life." 

"And I do not wish to share the fate of 
Julius Caesar. No daggers for me," said 
Franklin. "I would be a brave man and have 
taken my wife's advice and not gone to the 
Senate chamber on that fateful day." 

"Well, I know prophets are of no use in 
their own country," said Cyril. "Never have 



56 

the soothsayers when applied to, helped the 
applicant to anything good. The Witch of 
Endor only foretold Saul's downfall. Mac- 
beth's three evil spirits told of his undoing, so 
I am profoundly grateful, my comrades, that 
you do not call on me for any further in- 
formation regarding your futures." 

"Our future is a sealed book to us all," said 
Venner. "We know not what tomorrow will 
bring forth and it is far better thus. But, Cyril, 
I note your own shadow overcasts the portrait 
of Alexander the Great. You will have to 
drop some of your sarcastic reasoning to draw 
your sword and cut the Gordian knot in twain. 
Alexander was a passionate slasher who 
fought it out and reasoned afterwards." 

"And that was the cause of his early death," 
commented Cyril. 

"Since we have again arrived in the neigh- 
borhood of Athens, I would ask why sculpture 
was seemingly so neccessary to the ancient 
Greek?" asked Franklin, "and is so conspicu- 
ous by its absence in our own century?" 

"Because it was their language," said Cyril. 



57 

"Their everyday speech. They could not build 
a palace, neither could they build a slave house 
without it. No more could they erect a temple. 
Every household shrine was a sculptured 
image. Sculpture was their religion. I have 
often thought that the Greeks misused art by 
making sculpture so common; they seemed to 
live on clay dust." 

"But, my dear Cyril," said Richard, "we 
need sculpture today. It is as necessary to us 
as it was to the Greeks. What more peaceful, 
more happy, more healthful, more brave, more 
great people than the art-loving Greeks. Their 
streets were lined with sculptured images of 
their gods and their great public men. Every- 
where was this poetic expression of thought. 
Athens was the center of all the greatest clay- 
workers that the world had ever seen. Every 
beautiful thought was pictured in clay or 
spread on canvas. Why could not the Greeks 
become typical freemen and their civilization 
lead the world, when they adopted such force- 
ful yet gentle laws as these. 

"Art is the supreme regulator of brute na- 



58 

ture. The tremendous swollen rivers dash 
down the mountain sides carrying boulders 
weighing hundreds of tons and giant trees 
with them, as if they were but feathers, but as 
soon as this great torrent reaches the plain, it 
instantly subsides into quiet placid rivers. Art 
is like the valley plain. The strongest forces 
fall down and worship in the presence of her 
graceful figure. She is irresistible, for she 
portrays all that is glorious in nature. The 
divine in all things call upon her to interpret 
themselves unto man. Art is the mirror of 
nature. Art makes 'all the world akin.' ' 

"You believe then," asked Cyril, "that if 
each and every one of us take a chisel and at- 
tack a boulder we will thereby establish a per- 
fect civilized state?" 

"I believe," said Richard, "if we each study 
the grand and beautiful in nature work down 
the animal spirits to their rational level, not 
let any one passion devour us, we will soon 
reach the ideal state. 

"All great thinkers agree on one point, — that 
of the wonderful early Greek civilization. 



59 

Creasy says, 'that the mission of imperial Rome 
was in truth already accomplished, she had 
received and transmitted the civilization of 
Greece.' He tells us this in giving the causes 
of her defeat at the hands of Arminius mark- 
ing the turning point of her mighty power. I 
could question this statement as I consider 
Imperial Rome received a large part of the 
Grecian manners and customs, but she did not 
receive the real Grecian civilization, in fact the 
Greeks themselves could not give what they 
had already destroyed. When Rome rose, 
Athens was in ruins. She may have been as 
she is today, a populated city, but not the 
learned Athens of old. Her true Grecian civ- 
ilization was in ruins as surely as was the 
glorious Carthage. If Greece had kept her 
high standard of culture there would have 
been no Rome. For she had solved the prob- 
lem of humanity and was irresistible, when 
she threw this great secret away is when she 
fell. While Rome patterned after the Athen- 
ians she had a lower grade of civilization. 
Even at the pinnacle of her greatness her cul- 



6o 

ture was marred by great corruption, and con- 
sequently of a much lower cast than the Greek. 
Those grand truths commonly called 'Greek 
myths' were unthought of in Rome. She could 
not have originated such theories as these. She 
did not have the mental capacity. And there 
has been no nation to equal Greece in this 
searching and finding of these great laws of 
Nature. 

"Early Greece still teaches the nations of the 
earth. Scientists continually make great dis- 
coveries only to be disputed by the Greek 
scholar who can in almost every case show 
him that his find is only 'new' unto himself, 
that the Greeks had been there ages before 
him. The only difference being that he and 
those like him call the Greek knowledge 
'myths,' where he calls his 'practical theory 
and very possible truth,' and I know of no bet- 
ter way of comparing our pompous culture, 
largely due to our great scientific researches, 
than to take down these cobweb-covered, 
much neglected 'myths' and see how closely 
any real knowledge our men have found com- 



6i 

pare with these great 'mythological' truths 
recorded centuries ago. 

"It was only when great luxury and great 
riches came and brought their 'dry rot' that the 
Greeks perished. While they worked stone 
and moulded clay, and tilled the soil, they had 
the most perfect civilization the world has 
ever seen. But when they brought their cap- 
tives home from the wars and made them do 
all the work while they strutted about their 
cities thinking themselves too refined for man- 
ual labor, then it was that they began to dig 
their own graves, as the idle hands and minds 
soon were inventing base schemes of treason, 
plunder and murder of their own brothers. It 
is ever thus, the ending of all nations comes 
about in this way. 

"Ridpath says, 'the ancient Roman even of 
the highest rank was himself a laborer.' When 
I say 'ancient' I mean the period of the real 
greatness of Rome. Her early republican his- 
tory, not the blown up bag of foul gases rep- 
resented by the latter days of Octavius Caesar 
Augustus, pierced by the heroic German in 



62 

the marshes of the Lippe and the Ems. When 
the Romans ceased to labor with their hands 
as well as their minds, then began their un- 
doing as of the Greeks." 

"In your recent discourse on modern life 
I notice you lay particular stress on the evils 
of riches," said Cyril. "You are not leaning 
towards socialistic doctrines, are you, friend 
Richard? " 

"No, no," said Richard. "How many times 
will I tell you it is the extremes that are ruin- 
ous. I would not and could not throw down 
the law. I stand for law and order above all 
things. We cannot live without law, without 
restraint. There is too much brute force to be 
resisted, and resistance is necessary for the 
development of mind and body. There is law 
and order in the whole universe. What I try 
to point out is the abnormal in things. These 
are the abuses I would correct. 

"There are distinctions that must be made. 
There must be classes. Some men are better 
in some lines of work than others and merit 
a greater reward. Some persons are very dull 



63 

and others very sharp witted. But you must 
curb them all at times, or like a fine horse they 
will run away with you and jump over a preci- 
pice and hurl themselves and you to destruc- 
tion. 

"Croesus became so rich that he could think 
of nothing but adding to his pile by good 
means or bad, and showing himself and his 
wonderful treasures off to other men to gloat 
over their envy and amazement. He was 
soon, however, overthrown and all his wealth 
went to swell the coffers of Cyrus the Great. 
The history of Lydia is the history of all na- 
tions and as the individual man makes the 
nations so does he make history. It is the 
great middle class that carries on all good 
government, that does the business of the 
country, that upholds the majesty of the law, 
that carries the mental, moral, physical and re- 
ligious standards for a nation, in fact, the 
middle or moderate class is the heart, the soul 
and the body of every nation. The extremes, 
whether they be the very rich or the very poor, 
exert no influence in these matters, unless they 



6 4 

succeed in corrupting this middle class. When 
this occurs the nation soon disappears from 
the face of the earth, or it sometimes happens 
that after a terrible convulsion it may succeed 
in mending itself in some degree by casting 
off these drones. It is the stimulus, the de- 
gree of simplicity that creates the ambitions 
that this great class have, that equalize all 
differences in the growth of national life. 
Their industry, their thrift, their manual labor, 
this is the magic wand that guides the mighty 
races of men to great and noble deeds. 

"The misinterpretation of history, great 
events, great battles, a single figure presents 
itself as the sole being in the controversy 
when it is the movement of the whole people 
Individuals often guide these great actions of 
a mighty population of a country, but he must 
direct them in their own way, study the na- 
tion and do as it wishes, if he is to hold his 
sway. The greatest individual power ever 
held over a nation was weilded by the Emperor 
of the French, not the King of France. Na- 
poleon was made Emperor of the people by the 



65 

people, and none knew this better than he. It 
is by the consent of the people that they are 
ruled, and always have been. If a despot has 
sat on the neck of a people, it was because the 
people were despotic. 

"Socialistic doctrines complicate civilization 
so much that it would require another deluge 
to destroy mankind and begin anew, and even 
then we would have to eliminate Old Noah, 
create a new being entirely to live up to this 
standard of thinking." 

"Friend Richard," asked Cyril, "will you 
tell me the reason you compare modern civili- 
zation with that of the old Romans ? Can you 
not find a comparison as suitable to you at a 
later period in the world's history? Why go 
so far back? Have we not been making his- 
tory ever since the fall of Rome?" 

"I cannot find," said Richard, "any age of 
these latter times to compare us with other 
than I have already used to some extent in 
one of our earlier sessions. We of today have 
very little in common with the Dark Ages. 
After Greece and Rome man returned to his 



66 

lowest nature. A certain well-known historian 
says 'Rome was followed by chaos, confusion 
and night.' This is true from the fourth cen- 
tury to the ninth. Then we see a virtuous deed 
performed, or a short space of time when 
noble deeds are appreciated. This period 
stands out as a single star in the hideous black 
night of the middle ages previous to the four- 
teenth century. This is the Feudal age. The 
spirit that bids the Feudal knight speed out on 
the road to punish the oppressor, to lift up and 
defend and die if need be for the weak, was 
divine. The reverence and profound respect 
that the Medieval knight had for the weak and 
aged was sublime. These two cardinal vir- 
tues of this age we would do well to copy. I 
can almost forgive his crimes as I think of his 
noble acts in defence of his honor. This knight 
of contradictions. 

"What a striking illustration we get of the 
sentiment of these times in the sad but beau- 
tiful love story of the philosopher Abelard and 
the lovely Heloise — the monk teaching the 
maiden philosophy, the maiden teaching the 



6 7 

monk love, and the benighted age teaching 
them both sad disappointment and hopeless 
despair. Then we have nothing but chaos and 
confusion handed down to us by the Cru- 
saders. 

"In the early part of the twelfth century we 
have the inauguration of that gentle persuad- 
ing institution the Inquisition with its Cham- 
ber of Horrors organized for the extinction of 
the Albergenses in France, an invention for 
inhumane cowardly cruelty and dastardly mur- 
der unequalled by man since Creation. 

"This century also furnishes the Sicilian 
Vespers or the massacre of the French Pro- 
testants in Italy. 

"France paints another black picture for us 
in 1572. Thirty thousand Huguenots are 
butchered in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's 
night. France has never recovered from this 
mortal wound she gave herself at this time. 
And following we have 'wars and rumors of 
wars.' Think of the bloody useless wars of 
the Roses, and that devil in human form, 
Richard III, and his crimes. The fifteenth 



68 

century gives us a ray of light, the rising sun 
of the New World and Reformation appears 
on the horizon never to set. There is little in 
these ages to compare us with. We are Greeks 
and Romans all, therefore my going back to 
the Greeks and Romans for my humble illus- 
trations." 

"One striking feature of American civiliza- 
tion is the congregation of practically all races 
of men under one government," said Graham. 
"Is that to our advantage ?" 

"This condition is practically new," said 
Richard, "and to my mind it is to our disad- 
vantage. I have a little original verse touch- 
ing on this point somewhat that may explain 
my view of the subject. It may be a mistaken 
one, but here it is : 

Under the arched elms of an old New England road, 
Towards his native town a lonely figure strode, 
Large of hand, great sinewy arms, ponderous feet, 
Such strength of arm and character we rarely meet, 
Forehead high, steel gray eye and square of chin, 
A normal New Englander, undipped in sin, 
An Ulysses searching for his native land, 
But in Ithaca, the suitors are in command, 



6 9 

Penelope lost, Corruption holds sway 

Over this quiet country hamlet night and day. 

As the Traveller draws near his natal hearth 

He meets men and women of every birth ; 

Americans all, and freemen too ; 

Some tightly grasp the Eagle, others say "Shoo !" 

Looking at the group he can scarce repress a frown, 

And he, in turn, thro' Italia's eyes looks like a clown, 

And thro' petit France's creates disgust, 

Makes Portugal's simple countrymen afraid, 

Turns straight the oblique eye who to look essayed, 

Fires up dull Poland's leaden eyes, 

The ancient Hun declares "he's from the skies," 

The Syrian, the Russian, and the Turk, 

With wonderous eyes gaze on this noble work 

Of God, of goodly living, of old days, 

When men lived for a purpose in true ways, 

The drones of Southern Europe with some from 

Northern parts 
Are here to answer Greed's call with stinging darts, 
To obey the gesture of Fate's ominous hand, 
To traverse, to linger, and grow fat in this fair land. 
We are a Mecca for the dregs of Earth, 
While we laugh and shout in delirious mirth, 
Cry aloud defiance of all Natural law, 
So much wrong exalt, so much right ignore. 

We know that at the decline of Athens the 



70 

shiftless wanderers from every part of the 
world swarmed into Greece. 

"At the fall of Carthage her streets were 
full of foreigners, in fact, I believe Hannibal 
owes his defeat by the Romans to the poor 
quality of his troops. He had very few Car- 
thegians in his last army. They were too 
busy heaping up riches, or too lazy to leave 
their luxurious abodes to fight for their coun- 
try. They would buy substitutes among the 
new comers pouring in from every country, 
in fine, the Carthegians had become too cor- 
rupt to have any regard for what befell their 
country until it was too late. And Rome in 
her turn was sapped by this same agency. 

"At the fall of Rome every known tongue 
was heard in her city's streets, some being 
brought as captives, others allowed to come 
to work in the fields and workshops to sup- 
plant the now pleasure-loving and debase 
Romans, who disdained to do manual labor." 

"But we assimilate our emigrants," said 
Franklin, "as fast as possible and probably 
faster than any other nation on earth." 



7i 

"A good many reformers make this same 
statement," said Richard, "but come and take a 
stroll with me through Chinatown, or any of 
the numerous groups of foreign concentra- 
tion in our cities, and I will show you that 
you cannot Americanize a native of any other 
country as soon as you are pleased to believe. 
Take yourself, for instance. If you were sud- 
denly transplanted to Italy, Portugal, Hun- 
gary, Poland, China, you would stand by the 
principles of the United States to the last 
ditch. No one could make you a Chinaman, 
nor could they make you a Russian. 

"Wise men have said 'races will not mix,' 
and it is very true. Nations of a common 
language and a common method of accom- 
plishing the desired end will ofttimes mix to 
the mutual advantage of both. These are the 
kind of newcomers that we will assimilate in 
short order. But there are hoards of people 
coming to our shores that will not mix, that 
will always have to live apart from us if they 
and their seed remain here for centuries." 

"Some time ago," said Brown, "in answer to 



72 

a question asked by friend Cyril, you stated 
that there were enough people in some part 
of the globe to jump down on this mass of 
confusion and blot it out as of yore. Now I am 
unable to find this powerful branch of hu- 
manity. It seems to me with the great pow- 
ers of the earth already forming an arbitration 
court, and all the leading men of the world 
arguing universal peace, the huge genii you 
bring up for us to contemplate is rather airy, 
like the famous friend of Aladdin." 

"Your exceptions come rather belated," re- 
plied Richard. "But they shall be answered, 
and any more questions that you wish to bring 
up regarding statements I have made. I will 
answer all questions provided the Club wish 
to listen to the threshing out of old straw." 

"Well, gentlemen of the Sphinx Club," 
asked Brown, "shall our friend Richard ans- 
wer such questions as we wish to bring up re- 
garding former statements? I for one vote 
aye." 

"Well," said Franklin, "why can you not 



73 

ask your questions when the matter is under 
discussion?" 

"I cannot ask off-hand questions," said 
Brown. "My conception of the meaning of 
some lines of argument is slow, but of course 
I leave it to the Club to decide the matter." 

"Well," said Graham, "I move that if any 
two members object to such bringing up of 
former topics that the question will be thrown 
out." It was so voted. 

"This question of Brown's," said Richard, 
"is quite a natural one. There are very few 
people in our country today that will admit 
that anything of this sort can possibly happen. 
They get together in their cities and drive 
out the dark night with bonfires of electric 
lights and feel pompous and brave in their 
vast numbers as they parade up and down 
their city's streets. But let me tell you this is 
not real bravery. This is not the quality 
shown by Xenophon and his ten thousand 
Greeks. They could not have held together 
in their famous retreat if they had paraded 
up and down a city's streets for half a night 



74 

and debauched the other half. It is not the 
kind of bravery that causes a country boy to 
walk unconscious of evil three miles alone at 
the dead of night, through black forests and 
lonely meadows, when sent for a doctor or on 
some other important message, when a city 
bred lad cannot go into a dark room in his 
own home without fear and trembling. 

"This feeling of cowardice gets uppermost 
with the artificial city life. The continual 
round of make-believe demoralizes humanity, 
and I cannot see why we will not find our 
Nemesis in the hordes of China, India, and 
the other densely populated states of Asia. 

"We see what the Beacon Light of Asia 
is doing. I refer to the Japanese. They are 
beating the white man with his own weapons. 
If thirty-six millions can do this, what is it 
possible for four hundred millions to do, or 
perhaps eight hundred and fifty millions, to 
include China and the other Asiatic states? 
Now, I am not crying the 'Yellow Peril' from 
the house tops. I think this danger is quite 
remote. But, it is a possibility, nevertheless, 



75 

that we can bring upon ourselves in the re- 
mote future. As I have said, a nation is not 
made in a day, nor is it destroyed at such 
notice, but after a certain stage corruption 
rolls like an avalanche. 

"We must admit that there is stability in 
the Chinese character. They have occupied 
the same territory from time immemorial. 
Every other nation has been subject to radical 
changes in every possible condition they have 
ever attained, but the Celestial remains the 
same through centuries and centuries. And 
what is this great mongrel secret ? We of the 
Western world cannot call it progress. It is 
a condition utterly unknown to us. We can- 
not comprehend the Chinese. They are repul- 
sive to us. But we are obliged to believe in 
their endurance. Can we say as much of our- 
selves ? What have we that will not be a dust 
heap in ten centuries? There will be no such 
huge mark of the triumph of manual labor as 
the Great Wall of China ; no massive pyramids 
will mark the place of regal splendor such as 
we decorate ourselves with today. These light 



76 

fantastic things we make and call magnificent 
structures are built only for today. These 
twenty-nine story 'skyscrapers' will be gone 
tomorrow. They are not made to last. We 
only live for today. Who will deny that the 
Chinese Wall is responsible for the integrity 
of China all these Centuries? It is recorded 
of one of the very early Chinese emperors 
that, on assuming the crown, he declared, 'I 
will, if possible, have no idleness in my do- 
minions, for if there be one idle some other 
man must suffer cold and hunger.' So he puts 
them all at work. But whether this ancient 
monarch meant just what he said is hard to 
decide. It seems to me that he had discov- 
ered that to keep his subjects at work was the 
main point to be kept in mind. Consequently 
he built the Great Wall, and thus trained his 
people to work off their surplus animal spirits 
at home within their own territory. And does 
not their whole crude civilization tend to this 
end? They built the wall to keep their fierce 
neighbors out, and also to keep themselves in. 
And they have succeeded in enduring while 



77 

all other races have been disrupted and cor- 
rupted, and a large number destroyed alto- 
gether. 

"Now, I am not a lover of the 'heathen 
Chinee,' particularly, and am not desirous of 
adopting any of their customs, but I am try- 
ing to show that there is a great possibility in 
such stable endurance, and that Asia is a 
power which, if she awakens, would have to 
be reckoned with by Western civilization. I 
see no cause why Eastern history should not 
repeat itself as well as Western is already 
doing. The Christian has felt the terrible 
shock of victorious Islam in the South, and 
the Slav has recoiled before the fierce Tartar 
in the North, when Japan was a nonentity. 
And let us note, in passing, the Egyptian has 
stood by his Pyramid as long, and perhaps 
much longer, than the Chinese behind his 
Wall. 

"Do not these huge structures have an al- 
luring and sheltering influence on the races 
that construct them? We have the facts that 
the Egyptian is still living in the shadow of 



78 

the great Pyramid, and the Chinese still stands 
by his Wall. The Egyptian has shown, per- 
haps, a greater degree of stability than the 
Chinese, for they have been overrun by nearly 
all the nations of the earth, but have still pre- 
served their nationality. Another tribute 
might be paid to Egypt. All the really great 
conquerors have always been impressed with 
the works of the Egyptians to such a degree 
that they have patronized the cities of the 
Nile, some in rebuilding what they had torn 
down, and others in recognizing Egypt as a 
place of learning. It was here that the great 
Alexander built his magnificent city, and it 
was here that other monarchs of lesser in- 
telligence of antiquity came to learn. It was 
in the land of the Pharaohs that the nucleus 
of Christianity was found floating in the bull- 
rushes of the silent Nile. What a mighty 
power has arisen from that kindly act of the 
Egyptian princess? It has reached to the 
ends of the earth. It was here, too, that man 
burst through the black cloud of Oblivion, or 
from here we get the first record of his 



79 

awakening. And was it not the laborious task 
of the building of the Pyramids that broke 
the spell of darkness enveloping the human 
intellect? And did not the gigantic task of 
building the Great Wall of China awaken the 
Chinese, and produce the great philosophers 
Confucius and Mencius ? As the fruit of hon- 
est labor is just meditation which ripens into 
the golden harvest of deep and righteous 
thought." 



Chapter IV 



X *4^^S HE members of the Sphinx Club 
/ ^J had strolled into the old hall for 
^^^ the fourth meeting since the open- 
ing of the discussion on "Modern Life." 
"One of the questions that is causing quite an 
earnest agitation," said Graham, "not only 
among the clergy, but is seriously discussed 
by the thoughtful 'man in the street/ is that 
of 'Race Suicide/ so called. This matter is 
within the jurisdiction of our Club, I think." 

"That's a question," said Brown, "that you 
should be quite familiar with, since you are a 
happy man of family." 

"My being the happy man of family," said 
Graham, "is no doubt the reason why I do 
not know the exact cause of this disquieting 
question, being contented in the state I find 
myself is the direct cause of my ignorance, 
as you said awhile ago. 'Ignorance is bliss 
where it is folly to be wise.' " 



8i 

"I don't see," said Brown, "but that I am 
in the same state of mind that you are; the 
only difference being that I enjoy single bless- 
edness, and you enjoy double happiness. I 
must put it to fit your case. I have a nice 
home, friends and our Club, and I have all the 
necessaries of life; I have money enough to 
purchase anything I wish, but, of course, I 
use the same reasoning power in holding onto 
my purse-strings and in letting them loose 
that I would if my money belonged to some 
other person and only held in honest trust by 
myself. I live in luxury to a certain extent; 
go as I please and come when I please ; but, as 
I said, my pleasure is governed by my best 
judgment, and in this way I get the most real 
pleasure from my amusement that can be got- 
ten therefrom, but I find if I was in the double 
state of Graham I could not live happily, as 
my income being enough for one would come 
far short if two or more were helping to 
empty the pocket-book; also I am contented 
in my present state; I make no vows, so I 
break none. I can stay out late or come in 



82 

early ; I have the liberty that all men crave, but 
like the fabled Frogs, who craved for a king 
and received one in the shape of a Stork, 
who at once set about to eat them up, so 
men crave for liberty and get married." 

"If we were all of that state of mind," said 
Graham, "there would be little left on this 
earth, even for the King of Darkness to gloat 
over in a hundred years, and 'Race Suicide' 
would be accomplished." 

"Yes," said Brown, "none know this better 
than I, but why are conditions so hard on the 
married man? Why is the cost of living so 
high in comparison to man's earning power? 
Why cannot things be regulated to a man's 
ability? 'I am single because I cannot afford 
to marry' a hundred young fellows of my 
acquaintance will declare. Others are weak 
enough to marry and then we read in the 
daily press notices of divorce granted for 
'Non-support,' or 'Desertion,' and the great 
question of Divorce is probed at with gold- 
headed canes, handled with kid gloves and 
fountain pens, else the hero descends to the 



83 

'Abyss' and is lost in the general confusion 
of common, poverty-stricken every day life. 
Those who are left will ask, 'Where is Smith 
now?' 'Oh, he got married,' will be the ans- 
wer. The places of congenial companionship 
know him no more. He is like one who has 
been carried out to sea on a raft, there is no 
hope of ever seeing him again, do you think 
I can feel justified in accepting such a life 
as this? No, I feel that I would be doing 
an injustice to my children to bring them 
into the world with nothing to feed them on 
or clothe them with; and in justice to myself 
in slaving to keep body and soul together. 

"Another evil presents itself to me, the fact 
of the inferior quality of the wives of men of 
strong principles and stainless character, the 
number of weak, peevish and nagging girls 
that these fellows marry is astounding, and 
usually these men have had 'their pick' of all 
kinds. The young man will sit down beside 
a fine healthy girl of youth and college edu- 
cation; she has lovely dreams of some dark, 
handsome, curlv-headed Prince of untold 



8 4 

wealth who is dying for her if she will only 
wait until he can cast off his mask of a Don- 
key's head bestowed on him by a witch. This 
disgusts the youth and he runs away, and the 
lovely girl, seeing him run away, cries a little, 
but finally decides to wait for her Prince, — 
she waits from seventeen to twenty-five, more 
or less, but finally marries the Jackass' head 
in the hopes of breaking the spell, and inci- 
dentally preventing the terrible catastrophe 
of being an 'old maid.' She awakes out of 
her delusion when she receives the Jackass' 
return from the 'Club,' but instead of the 
harmless mule there appears the terrible head 
of the Hydra. 

"Well, I left my young man on the run ; he 
stops to talk with a 'well-read' girl, but plain 
to look upon. She has dreams of just what a 
man should be and she will not look at any- 
thing else unless there is a gold-lining to his 
pockets, for, of course, 'we must have enough 
to live on and keep ourselves, and father and 
mother, and help brother with his education.' 
Our young man travels on; he finds a beau- 



85 

tiful girl without much learning ; she lives only 
for style; she paints her cheeks and co\ers 
her graceful form with 'hooks' to catch the 
gold fish only, — no matter who or what he is, 
if he glitters that is enough. Our young man 
hurries on and finally meeting with rebuffs on 
all sides he picks up a girl that only knows 
she is a girl. She is usually homely, never 
looks neat and don't intend to, and in despera- 
tion he marries her and goes through his 
Purgatory. These, Graham, are the reasons 
I do not enter the matrimonial state and this 
is the cause of 'Race Suicide,' as the young 
men cannot afford to marry and live right. 
These are the reasons we have so many bach- 
elors in our cities." 

"You only illustrate one more of the great 
evils of our 'high civilization,' Brown," said 
Richard. "Your fastidious young girls are 
only one of the products of these times, our 
young men are suffering with the same dis- 
ease, and I judge you have a touch of it also. 
Still you have a very good defence of your 
course, and I could pardon you, for I can 



S6 

hardly blame a man for getting what little 
comfort he can from this short life of ours. 

"Of course, most of our young men marry, 
but there is an ever increasing number that are 
of your mind, and these are the ones that 
should marry and bring up the future genera- 
tions, for they have prepared themselves to live 
right, and are thus the ablest teachers for the 
young America coming up to take the reins 
of government. There is truth in your state- 
ment that desperation drives many men tq 
matrimony, for misery likes company, and also 
debt drives men to wed, as Kipling sings in 
his old song: 

'So long as Aces take the King, 

Or backers take the bet, 
So long as debt leads men to wed, 

Or marriage leads to debt; 
So long as Lust and Lucre tempt 

Straight riders from their course, 
So long as with each drink we pour 

Black brewage of Remorse.' 

"It is the great confusion of the city life 
that brings about these conditions. The evil 



87 

of commercialism is rampant, we must get 
back to nature if we wish to have conditions 
as they should be. We belong to nature and 
must live near her. Everything teaches us 
this, but we will not learn. Our bodies are 
composed of the very same elements that na- 
ture puts into all her wonderful works. Oxy- 
gen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon she works 
into all her magnificent and boundless crea- 
tions. Man, beast, birds of the air, fishes of 
the sea, trees of the forest, in fact, all the 
vegetable and mineral life, are composed of 
these same ingredients, the difference we find 
in all these things is but the skilful hiding of 
the same material in the grand symmetrical 
delusion of arrangement governed by the 
Great Artist, and man is the only one of these 
mighty creations that is given that divine gift 
of reason. It is he alone who can use this gift. 
It is he who can create the great destructive 
power of picric acid, and it is he who can 
cause the Milk of Human Kindness to flow, 
and as we look at the growing boy we wonder 
which he will endeavor to promote with his 



88 

strong right arm, therefore the care we 
should exercise in training him, he should not 
be the passion flower that blooms only in the 
night, but he should be the stalwart rose that 
blooms the season through, the product of 
the matured plant. 

"We are, if we are normal men, all alike in 
the body. Each of us is subject to the same 
passions, each has the same degree of good 
and bad; we also have the liberty of cultivat- 
ing each virtue and each passion. Our degree 
of manhood is acquired by the degree we 
cultivate virtue. The degree of evil is gov- 
erned by the extent we cultivate passion. You 
must sow pure seed and keep the weeds away 
from the tender plant if you wish to reap the 
bountiful harvest. 

"In those simple days of yore men who 
'built' the United States of America did not 
use enough money in their daily life to pay 
a street car fare, Honor and Justice and 
Brotherly Love were the legal tender of our 
forefathers. When a young man married he 
would receive as wedding gifts the homely 



8 9 

and practical only with which to furnish his 
humble home, he would receive a plot of land 
to till and build his house on, his neigh- 
bors and friends would take a couple of days 
'off' and have a 'House Raising/ which means 
that they would come in large numbers, build 
the young man's house and barn for him and 
the only recompense they received was Bro- 
therly Love. What a golden price these men 
received for their labor. If you and I would 
receive it for arduous labor we would — what 
would we do in this tense age? We would 
likely bring out a gun and demand gold, be- 
cause we do not know what rare value our 
ancestors derived from life. I almost laugh 
when I repeat that all the recompense these 
friends would expect from the young man was 
a return of the good deeds that they had lav- 
ished on him. 

"Brotherly Love, Kindly Acts, Fellowship 
among men, how light and airy these words 
sound, like something very far away, in fact, 
like something of almost impossible concep- 
tion. Is it not so in this mad rush for riches? 



90 

Does man ever stop to hear such words but 
to laugh at them, and shove his struggling 
brother down deeper into the Slough of 
Despond that he might gather the few golden 
coins that the brother would drop in his 
downfall." 

"I cannot agree with you/' said Graham. 
"I believe that there are as good men nowa- 
days as there were in the eighteenth century." 
"Yes, there are as good men, no doubt," said 
Richard, "but they do not show their good side 
at the proper time. The individual man is 
very often a good man, but take man collec- 
tively and he is getting very bad. I have 
touched on the individual man before in for- 
mer discussions somewhat, and I don't think 
I would ever tire of directing your attention 
to him. He is 'all in all/ and we should cor- 
rect him and not reach out for a million to 
mould as one man, we are so prone to try 
the impossible. 

"Did you ever note the wild heedless actions 
of a crowd in a city's street? I have seen a 
rat run out from a building on a great public 



9i 

thoroughfare and actually stop the entire traf- 
fic for half an hour, as the rat ran into the 
street messenger boys spied him and rapidly 
made after him, then a street cleaner came 
along to assist in the killing, then a truck- 
man stopped to see the fun, then another and 
another, and the crowd on the sidewalk had 
by this time become a struggling mass of 
humanity shouting 'who's killed,' 'who's hurt/ 
'anybody robbed,' 'police.' Large trucks and 
heavy delivery wagons had effectively blocked 
trolley cars and all other traffic, and all this 
was not ended until a 'cop' had killed the rat. 
Now if you or I had met one of the men in- 
dividually and told him that a messenger boy 
was going to kill a rat on the corner in a few 
moments and have asked this man to rush 
wildly about and shout 'murder,' 'burglars/ 
'police/ he would direct us the nearest way to 
Bellevue Hospital in short order. 

"Did you in your younger days walk down 
Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and stop sud- 
denly in a conspicuous place and gaze in- 
tently at the upper windows of a large build- 



9 2 

ing for the fun of seeing a hundred people do 
the same who were a moment before hurrying 
madly on to 'Somewhere?' I have. 

"Did you ever note the way that people eat 
their noonday meals in ten minutes and spend 
an hour watching a drayman struggle to 
make his poor old fallen horse rise once more 
to his feet? Have you ever noted what a 
panic a fire sale will make on the street and 
how goods that under ordinary sale would not 
go at forty-nine cents will be carried off in 
triumph at sixty-nine cents? 

"Do you know that Style requires as many 
human sacrifices as did the Druids in old 
Britain? Shall I take you into the theatres, 
at the race tracks, to the beer gardens, to show 
you far worse examples of man collectively ? 

"We have a large number of good solid men, 
but they are individual men, and even these 
put into a great crowd most of them would 
do the bidding of the greatest fool as quickly 
as they would obey the order of the wisest 
man or the greatest philosopher, the indi- 
vidual man is what we must have if we are to 



93 

reach a right civilized state. Everything in 
this great world has its own individuality. 
This must be for pure and united action. 

"Have you ever looked over the battlefield 
of Harper's Ferry and met the farmers of the 
country side, and received their salutations of 
'How do?' 'Nice day?' Not merely a farmer 
you might meet in the field, but every one you 
meet, in the woods, on the roads, in the by- 
paths, everywhere you come across a man, 
woman, or child, it is the same 'good-will 
toward men' attitude. 

"I will not raise the question of our South- 
ern farmer being very much better than our 
Northern city man, but here is a pearly drop 
of Fellowship from what we would no doubt 
call the dark ages of American development, 
namely, the eighteenth century civilization. I 
will not argue what causes the hearty expres- 
sion of 'How do?' to float from the mouths of 
these backwoodsmen when they see me strolling 
along the road. It is perhaps that the kindly 
invitation to 'come up to see my place the next 
time you come down' involves the payment of 



94 

a double ransom for a dinner. I care not, but 
it is that echo of a far away honest and hon- 
orable civilization that comes to me from the 
Past as I hear these free-hearted people that 
I found in this far away spot. Perhaps this 
is a relic of the old southern chivalry, but I 
choose to associate it farther back to the dear 
old Revolutionary times ; southern gallantry is 
a product of these times as well. How beau- 
tiful of the grand old Potomac to be able to 
secrete so simple but such all-powerful ex- 
pressive jewels as these in her verdant hills 
and valleys. Far from the metallic clang of 
modern speech tuned to the 'Almighty Dollar' 
ritual. 

"In gazing over this picture of nature, fram- 
ing the Potomac and the cradle of the Shenan- 
doah what havoc would be made of all this 
grand flowing life of nature's bosom were it 
to be changed into a city. Instantly, everything 
would be changed from life to death, for man 
kills everything that shows life in building his 
city. He changes everything from real to un- 
real; every right is wronged, and this sylvan 



95 

spot would become like unto the German leg- 
end in which a traveller waxing tired in his 
long journey fell asleep on a mountain side, but 
was soon awakened by a great noise, as of an 
earthquake, he jumped to his feet and saw 
where yesterday was a beautiful valley of 
meadows and forests, now changed to a city 
of lofty towers and low houses, and crooked 
streets, he descends into the city and as he 
walks along the street great bells were ringing 
out loudly and continuously, and all the peo- 
ple were hurrying about with downcast eyes 
and worried look without noticing the stran- 
ger, some were rushing around madly on the 
streets and shouting 'hurry, hurry, your time 
is short, we will be buried tonight !' The 
traveller tried to stop a young man to ask him 
what was the matter with everybody, and what 
city he was in, but the man pushed him aside 
roughly and hurried on. After trying to hold 
up other persons our traveller finally stopped 
an old man and inquired what city it was. The 
old man said 'Oh! I see you are a Christian, 
you must not stay here, for this is the Doomed 



9 6 

City which was buried for its wickedness, 
and is allowed to come to the earth's surface 
for a day but once in a hundred years. We 
shall be buried tonight, so hurry out of this 
wicked place, your time is short as the sun is 
burning low and the bells are warning us of 
the end.' So the old man led the traveller 
back to the mountain side where he soon fell 
asleep and when he awoke the city had dis- 
appeared." 

"Well, now, leaving physical man for 
awhile," said Venner, "my mind returns to the 
beautiful in nature. How many times I have 
looked in vain for the red-breasted robin, the 
blue birds, the orioles, and all those more beau- 
tiful birds of song and bright colors that New 
England should have in abundance. Where 
are they, and why have they disappeared from 
their old haunts ? Why when in the city as I 
throw crumbs out of my window do I see only 
the flutter of the always dirty little gray-brown 
sparrow? Why do I see the noble buffalo 
only in a cage enclosure in a modern city 
park?" 



97 

"It seems to me," said Cyril, "you do not 
look in the right place for your red-breasted 
robin and other birds of song, we have them 
still in some parts of New England, and as to 
the English sparrow, he seems to be the only 
bird we can civilize." 

"I merely asked the question," said Venner, 
"because I missed these things of beauty and 
song, these emblems of purity, what say 
you, friend Richard?" 

"Quite true, Cyril," said Richard, "we have 
'civilized' the English sparrow, we have taught 
him to eat every description of food and to 
drink every kind of liquid, he has learned 
to live and breed fast under the sad conditions 
that our cities offer to a homeless wanderer, 
he has learned the great secret of modern 
civilization, to rob and to drive out all his 
useful brethren of song and beauty. In fact, 
he has increased in numbers to such an extent 
that he declared war against even man and 
several pitched battles have been fought with 
the people of Massachusetts. I don't know 
which side won, but I do know that he still 



9 8 

roams about in roving bands devouring every- 
thing within reach in the enemy's country, so 
I judge the sparrow came out victorious." 

" The more beautiful robin and blue bird 
cannot be 'civilized' because they belong to a 
higher and nobler civilization than this. They 
are foreign to a modern city. They demand 
a clear, healthful air, green grass and trees, 
in short they are nature's finest works of art, 
and require her bosom to live in, require her 
tenderest care. They are too pure to dwell 
in contact with so much evil. They are like 
Adam before he ate of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge, but they are much wiser than he, 
as they prefer to die rather than to eat the 
poisonous fruit that the serpent would en- 
treatingly offer them." 

"Well," said Cyril, "the buffalo has given 
place to the cow and ox on our great Western 
plains." 

"Or rather," said Richard, "they were vic- 
tims of civilization, they were slaughtered 
by thousands for the purpose of making buf- 
falo robes to satisfy Style; one hunter killing 



99 

as many as eight hundred animals in a week's 
shooting. Why this mutilating of nature? 
Why this disfiguring of the earth's surface? 
Men only reap greater curses with every blow 
they strike at the beautiful in nature. Do 
they not know that these things would not be 
beautiful if they did not have a beautiful work 
to perform for man? 

"Let me recall Whittier's lines of the mythi- 
cal cause of the red on the robin's breast. A 
boy threw a stone at the bird in the presence 
of his grandmother. 

"Nay," said the grandmother, "have you not heard, 

My poor bad boy of the firery pit, 
And how drop by drop this merciful bird, 

Carries the water that quenches it? 

"'He brings cool dew in his little bill, 

And lets it fall on the souls of sin; 
You can see the mark on his red breast still, 

Of the fires that scorch as he drops it in." 

"Ah, yes, these noble animals and handsome 
birds and beautiful flowers are here to help 
guide and to help hold up the 'right hand and 



100 

the left' of man in his heavy task of solving" 
his destiny." 

"I for one," said Brown, "can vouch for the 
usefulness of the birds in one line of inquiry, 
that of the weather. I do not have to leave 
my hammock on a summer's day to seek the 
knowledge of the next day's storm. I notice 
the birds in the elms above me ruffle up their 
feathers and fly swiftly to-and-fro if it is to be 
stormy. The beautiful swan in our small pond 
who is of no practical use except to float 
around and look graceful is even a better 
barometer than my birds." 

"That bird," said Cyril, "has a good right 
to impart some of his knowledge to you if he 
has lived one-half of the three hundred years 
allotted to his kind." 

"Yes," said Richard, "the water foul show 
the approach of the storm more quickly than 
the birds of the wing, they, too, ruffle up 
their plumage and swim aimlessly about and 
utter loud harsh cries. Our domestic fowl 
will lose all ambition to run about if a storm 
be approaching. They will stand, with droop- 



101 

ing tails, on one leg and look at you with half- 
closed eye wondering no doubt why you too do 
not take a little time from your hurry and 
bustle and observe the weather also. Why do 
we need great weather observatories when we 
have the knowledge all about us if we wish, 
an old farmer can tell the weather a day or 
two in advance and come as near as our 
w r eather prophets do with all their infinite 
detail of investigation. We study the sky in 
all parts of the country to discover any change, 
we make notes of such change and run to the 
telegraph and despatch the precious informa- 
tion to all other parts of our country, while 
we make haste to tell everyone we meet of the 
storm that too ofttimes never comes, we make 
haste to print the information, we tack it up 
on our door posts. 

"And is not a great deal of our boasted 
learning acquired in this way? We shut our 
eyes and ears to all these natural truths given 
to us by Divine Nature and accept only such 
results that we can acquire through long, la- 
borious, farsical and artificial red tape. We 



102 

lean more to the false power of the dust em- 
bodied in the long curling form of the serpent 
instead of adopting the knowledge at our 
hands embodied to a high degree in the beau- 
tiful birds which are the highest and the purest 
power of Athena, the great Greek goddess, 
meaning the pure incarnated air. Are not 
we like unto the professor who spent three 
weeks inspecting a farmer's corn crib to ascer- 
tain the fact of the number of rows of corn on 
a cob? When he called the farmer and told 
him of his wonderful discovery what was his 
disgust when the farmer said, 'If you had 
come to me before you went to my crib I 
could have told you the same thing, by gosh; 
as I saw you hang around the crib so much I 
had about decided that you were stealing my 
corn, think of this, if the professor had gone 
to the right place he would have gotten his 
information; if he had asked a student of 
nature he would have gotten the truth in a 
moment instead of spending three weeks in 
the search. Study nature if you wish to be 
learned. This is the secret of Greek culture 
and of all other real culture." 



Chapter V 



*^0^~S HE Sphinx Club had come together 

fi J for their fifth meeting. "I wish to 

^^i^ call your attention, gentlemen," 
said Wheeler, "to the fact that this is the fifth 
meeting of our Club, since we undertook to 
help explain some of the causes of the great 
evils that beset man on all sides — notwith- 
standing the effort of one of our members to 
exclude these questions from our discussions, 
I think we should feel gratified at having been 
able to carry the discourses so long without 
our strenuous friend's objection, taking a more 
powerful form." 

"Oh! well," said Cyril, "I soon found out 
that I would have to be lenient with you 
fellows, and when you awoke the lazy Brown 
by your eloquence, I could not help but be- 
come interested myself. In fact, I think we 
have not carried some of the questions that 



104 

we have talked over far enough. I think there 
is plenty of chance to enlarge on a great many 
questions we have had under discussion, and 
that the points that we have let go are almost 
as essential as those we have brought out." 

"I feel," said Graham, "that we have made 
a stride in the right direction, and if we do not 
take as much time to draw a conclusion as we 
might, still I think we brought out the points 
sufficiently for our own satisfaction, but, per- 
haps, we could lengthen our sessions some- 
what." 

"I don't think," said Franklin, "it would be 
to our good to lengthen our sessions." 

"I think we use time enough," said Richard. 

"And I," put in Venner. 

"In studying Darwin," said Wheeler, "and 
other great scientists I am struck with the 
ruthless manner in which they handle man. 
They tell us man is an 'intelligent atom.' Man 
is an 'Intelligence assisted by organs.' They 
cannot seemingly get away from the fact that 
there is, and always was, this intelligence." 

"No," said Richard, "they can carry out 



105 

their theory of the animal part of man, but they 
cannot account for the divine spark of in- 
tellect." 

"It seems to me," said Cyril, "most of their 
theories are built upon exceptions." 

"I consider that Darwin's natural selection," 
said Venner, "is but another way of putting 
the story of the wearing out of animal power, 
or the using up of waste material." 

"I agree with Cyril," said Wheeler, "on the 
exceptional cases adopted by scientists to 
prove their theories. It seems to me the 
mere accident of a child 'taking back' that is 
a child having the same peculiarities as its 
grandparents, as we will ofttimes notice, and I 
know of the offspring of cattle being as unlike 
either father or mother, that an expert will 
declare that it was a 'mongrel breed' when it 
came from what was supposed to be pure 
stock. I have seen a colt born with markings 
of white from a pair of 'bay' parents, and do- 
mestic fowl will often produce parallel cases. 
I have seen a black Spanish fowl produce a 
black and white chick amongst a clear black 



io6 

brood. We call these 'Freaks of Nature' and 
forget them, but it seems evident to me that 
any of these 'freaks' could upset some of the 
smooth theories of some of these scientists." 

"Well," said Brown, "there is a statement 
made by some that I cannot agree with, which 
is 'rarity is a precursor of extinction.' I can- 
not see it in this light. A certain great peo- 
ple become corrupt and pine away until an- 
other people come and capture them and their 
country, kill and work them until there is 
only a comparatively few left, but that few by 
being restrained from the corrupting influences 
that caused their downfall in the first instance 
become powerful again and turn on their now 
corrupt oppressors and regain their lost 
prestige." 

"These great and good men studied to help 
explain the mystery of the world," said Rich- 
ard, "and of the wonderful Life herein. They 
tell us we are a combination of very small cells. 
Some say that man was originally a four- 
footed animal, and others give us overwhelm- 
ing proof that man was always erect and 



107 

walked on two feet, which any lay brother will 
instantly swear to. We are made up of 'cells' 
and these 'cells' are made up of other 'cells' 
and these still more 'cells', and so on. 

"The planetary system, man says, is made 
up of so many stars and suns. He will tell 
you how the sun's total diameter is eight hun- 
dred and sixty-five thousand miles, and that 
it is about ninety-five millions of miles distant 
from the earth, that if you are inclined to 
stroll around the earth's orbit before break- 
fast you would have to travel one hundred and 
eighty-six millions of miles, that the nearest 
fixed star is only twenty-six trillions of miles 
from your doorstep. And how many fixed 
stars are behind that? Millions and millions. 
Like the world life, it goes on to the infinite, 
'cells' within 'cells/ stars behind stars. If 
man can manufacture a more powerful 
telescope he will find more stars. If he makes 
a more powerful microscope he will discover 
more cells, more minute atoms. 

•'But where is the missing link between the 
animal and the intellectual being? Why can- 



io8 

not the scientist connect the man's body and. 
his soul? Who holds the key to this great 
mystery ? 

"Here these great minds have worked out 
an almost perfect theory. Why could they not 
finish it? Why like the builders of the Tower 
of Babel are they allowed to build so high and 
then grasp tongues of heresy? When they 
near the pinnacle they become mystified. Con- 
fusion sets in and if they go any further they 
become lost, and go round and round until 
they get back to their starting point. Do they 
not tell us we were apes ? They trace the well- 
balanced and symmetrical body of man back 
to the ugly body of an ape, and still back until 
we are on equal terms with the first 'cell' or 
'life atom' that starts out to become the croak- 
ing midnight frog ! 

"No doubt the common house fly that so 
persistently buzzes around your face is a great 
fly philosopher out on a tour of inspection of 
puny man, who has just jumped up from the 
easy chair in his cosy library, kicked off his 
three pairs of slippers (for Mrs. Fly Philoso- 



109 

pher to pick up again while buzzing in a sub- 
dued way, ('John's such a careless man'), and 
adjusted his spectacles over his thousands of 
compound eyes, and has come at you at the 
rate of six hundred strokes per second of his 
delicate wings, and, in fact, if he wishes to 
have the honor of taking the first observation 
of you, he can increase his speed six or seven 
fold, if you watch him very closely you may 
be able to see him pull out a memorandum 
book from his inside pocket and hurriedly 
pencil down a few lines discoursing on the 
new brand of cigar you are smoking. 

"Perhaps the worm you see crawling along 
the gutter is an expert chemist having just left 
his underground laboratory bristling with re- 
torts, test-tubes and little Bunsen lamps with 
their blue flickering flames, to try and verify 
some of the observations he has made of the 
per cent, of oxygen required in the air to keep 
alive the large Brahma rooster in your back 
yard. And how truly he should keep out of 
the way of this fat member of the feathered 



no 

tribe that excites his solicitude, we know if he 
does not. 

"These brilliant intellects that work out this 
story are not above the commonest snake in the 
grass ! the beetle that lays its eggs in the cow- 
dung! they have gone so far up the Tower of 
Babel that they forget what they learned on the 
way. Where did the power come from that en- 
abled these men to search for these cells, to 
search for the infinite ? It seems to me they are 
lost in the mist of high clouds they have reach- 
ed and fall back, but still believe they are going 
higher up; so the present day intellectual and 
animal man is taken by them and set down in 
what they call the Pleistocene period, or the 
very beginning of their researches. They look 
at the sky and are lost in its wonderous Space. 
They look at the earth Life and are lost in its 
immensity. 

"Carlyle says of man 'For the highest God 
dwells visible in that mystic unfathomable 
visibility which calls itself T on earth.' 

" 'Bending before man,' says Novalis, 'is a 
reverence done to the revelation in the flesh. 



Ill 

We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a 
human body.' This is a very agreeable con- 
trast to the coldblooded way in which our fa- 
mous scientists picture man and his being. 

"Why do these words 'ring true' in our 
hearts, is it our Vanity that causes us to listen 
to this noble definition of man? Is it our Self- 
love that makes us desire to be thus defined? 
Is it Conceit that drives us many times against 
our wills to praise and to worship Purity 
wherever we find it? If it is then here we have 
the ingredients for making the Soul, no matter 
how much man will outrage and destroy, he 
will, in his inner-self, and more especially when 
he returns to his normal state, praise and wor- 
ship the good in all things. These writers, who. 
in their learned trance, call man the embodi- 
ment of 'nothingness' in their sober moments 
do him the very highest honor in saying that he 
is the apex of all world life, and that he is 
'an intelligence assisted by organs.' This 'in- 
tellect' or soul, has been recognized by all races 
of men in every clime since creation ; be they 
learned or the untutored savage. The Xeth of 



112 

the Egyptians; the Bel of the Caldeans; 
Athena of the Greeks ; Jupiter of the Romans ; 
Allah of the Mohammedans; Buddha of the 
Buddhists ; are but the different names of the 
same Eternal God that the soul forces the 
body to believe in and worship. Pagans, Idol- 
aters worshipped idols as the visible emblems 
of their God. 

"One tendency of modern times is to ques- 
tion our religion. Scientific investigation is 
creating a feeling of unbelief in our people, 
our 'great thinkers' are taking some excep- 
tions to the New Testament, and a good part 
of the old has already been called fiction. Our 
scientists seem to be in this fight against the 
Bible because it bids them halt in their mad 
career. They make fun of the great teachings 
that has made it possible for them to have the 
opportunities to become 'broad-minded men' 
of learning. They make light of the great laws 
that have civilized the world. Let me here 
quote a few lines from the immortal Pope : 



H3 

"Go ! wonderous creature, mount where science 
guides, 

Go ! measure earth weigh air and state the tides ; 
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run; 

Correct Old Time and regulate the sun. 

Go ! teach Eternal wisdom how to rule, 
Then drop into thyself and be a fool. 
****** * * 

Trace science then with modesty thy guide ; 
First strip off all her equipage of pride ; 
Then see how little the remaining sum." 

You will see in the comic press the liberty 
that is taken with the teachings of the Old 
Testament. This would not be so if the learn- 
ed man had not first ridiculed some of these 
stories. They cannot give us anything to re- 
place this Good Book so why take this away 
and leave us to flounder around in despair at 
the feet of the golden calf. 

"I see in this disregard for the sound doc- 
trines of our forefathers another sign of phys- 
ical decay. We are gradually drifting in to 
the same state that preceded the stoic period 
in Rome. Our learned professors in trying to 



ii4 

reconcile philosophy and theology are under- 
mining the foundations of law and order, cut- 
ting down the staff that all great nations must 
have to walk with and endure. They raise up 
the ghost of despair in the minds of the weak. 
The great mass of the people become indiffer- 
ent, are driven to adopt the stoic state of mind 
which preceded the downfall of Greece and es- 
pecially Rome. They follow the professors 
and ask each other if he knows what he be- 
lieves. Each evades the question since the 
learned men whom in former times he called 
•on to help him prove an argument will only 
say 'We believe only what we can prove.' He 
says nothing. He stays away from church 
more often for when he goes he is in such a 
state of turmoil between these fellows' argu- 
ments and the great natural facts of wonder- 
ful divine Nature that he is completely puzzled, 
consequently he becomes a 'back-slider.' The 
church loses some of his support, the good 
sound judgment is at a loss how to proceed. 
He hesitates, he wrestles with himself, and 
while all this confusion is going on the church 



H5 

is, of course, losing power to do good. Less 
support in moral and financial matters be- 
cause of this great black doubt that has arisen, 
and at the present the ministry is becoming less 
able to carry its load by the absence of the 
talent it should have. The young men of 
strong character are becoming stoic. They 
too, can believe only what they can prove, and 
they cannot go before the people and preach 
doctrines that they are in doubt about. They 
too, like the Romans of old, are coming to 
look upon religion as a political necessity, to 
be tolerated for the control of 'the vulgar 
masses' only. Here is our undoing. Here is 
where we depart from the great Power that 
made us. Here is where we introduce the un- 
bridled stud of evil. We must have something 
to do. We cannot lie dormant. We have 
lost our faith, we must have something. W^hat 
will it be ? What it has always been in the past, 
Pleasure ! Man runs to the theatres, to the 
pool rooms and beer gardens, and the like, try- 
ing to forget the fate that awaits him. He 
keeps himself in a high nervous state and re- 



n6 

laxes only when sickness comes or death 
knocks at his door. Love and duty are un- 
known, we are getting to be a nation of law- 
breakers. Our young break every known law. 
There is no restraint, no governing, no sense 
of duty in them. There is no respect for the 
weak and aged. Why such utter disregard for 
all things that make a national life secure or 
an individual one? 

"Conversation, association of persons from 
the cradle to middle life, social intercourse 
create high ideals in the exchange of views of 
thought on current subjects. We are in this 
way able to place our brother men in their 
proper place in our confidences and relations, 
religious business and political, etc. (this is 
much more necessary to a republic than to a 
monarchy where each man is properly graded 
by birth and caste.) This condition is rapidly 
disappearing from our country. 

"In rambling around the earth, in short 
stays in places, tend toward the breaking up 
of man's contented mind. There is no more 
Christianizing influence than a good home. 



ii; 

Man without a home is nothing more than a 
beast, and the farther away a people get from 
the homelike influence the nearer they get to 
disruption. The loose city life is agnostic 
to the quiet pure home hearth where the family 
gathered 'round the fireside to listen to mother 
or father read some good strong healthy story. 
Far from the evil thought that fill a large 
part of the books of fiction of today, the young- 
er generation reading about the 'natural' hero 
or heroine shocking their elders in every move 
they make. The author gushingly describes 
his heroine as being 'so natural, so full of life' 
that she does not know right from wrong, 
or more times he will say 'Evil is 
to those who evil thinks,' meaning to 
infer that his heroine does no wrong 
because it is her nature. It is not that 
her actions are shocking, actually shock- 
ing. Her actions may be natural enough, but 
it is the absence of common sense she shows 
in the time and place that she acts, that shocks 
her elders and makes the book unfit for the 
young to read. But they read this kind of 



u8 

literature, act the same. They make fun of 
the 'puritanical' ideas of the older school of 
humanity, they have no patience with destiny, 
try to grasp their fate with both hands, en- 
deavor to beat nature, only to reap a harvest 
of green poisonous fruit, as one must if he 
picks his apples before they are ripe. 

"And all this fever heat ; all these efforts of 
wonderful brain power, 'man overcoming na- 
ture,' they call it, all these great mechanical 
delusions, after all this riot, they fall down 
and cry out in their weakness as Nature steps 
in and makes them feel what little helpless 
children they are." 

"I believe," said Brown, "that the time will 
come when Nature will take men up in her 
arms and carry them back to the doorstep of 
her home, as any mother picks up her off- 
spring from the middle of the street where 
they would likely be run down and killed. She 
knows that they have been punished enough 
for their going astray, so with a word of cau- 
tion she will leave them once more to play at 
her hearthstone." 



iig 

"Undoubtedly," said Richard, "history re- 
peats itself continually but it is not necessary 
for us to go through all this suffering, endure 
all this havoc for the sake of sitting in the mid- 
dle of the road to mix mud pies. We cannot 
follow in the footsteps of the polluted Romans 
without arriving at the same goal as they. 

"The debauched Romans went to the Colos- 
seum to witness the powers of foreign strong 
men. We go to Vaudeville shows in order to 
see a strong natural robust man in these latter 
days of dried-up counter jumpers, bloated bar 
tenders (tend bar mostly on the outside), and 
other specimens of indoor imbeciles." 

"There have been men of abnormal 
strength," said Cyril, "in all ages. The Old 
Testament mentions Goliath, the Philistine. 
And later we have Sampson the strong man 
of Israel, and I recall one Teutobach of 
ancient history fame." 

"Yes," said Richard, "they are sent to a 
nation in a time of a bondage or at the period 
of a downfall of its manhood as a living re- 
proach. They have accomplished nothing of 



120 

importance in their brief irregular appear- 
ances. Goliath was killed by a small boy, and 
the Philistines straightway routed. Sampson 
was ensnared by a woman, delivered by her to 
his enemies and put to death, and at his time 
you will note, that the Jews were in bondage, 
and Teutobach, the great German ruffian was 
captured and his host of barbarians totally de- 
feated. Let me tell you, my friend, anything 
in the extreme is dangerous, is not right. Em- 
erson said that 'Justice is the rhythm of 
things." Equilibrium is another name for 
justice. 

"What is this that an eminent Englishman 
remarks of the American college man after a 
visit to our shores on a tour of inspection of 
our colleges, he said, 'The American college 
man is becoming very feminine in his looks 
and manners.' He did not examine our stores, 
our shops, and offices, and professional men; 
he did not look into our factories, if he had I 
think he would have said that all of us were 
fast becoming 'squaw men,' getting weak in 
our bodies due to our consumption of foods 



121 

unfit to eat and liquids unfit to drink, lack of 
proper healthful exercise and close confine- 
ment in badly ventilated buildings crowded 
together in our miserable ant hill cities. 

"Where our grandfathers got their manly 
forms and brainy heads from corn meal and 
wheat grown on their own farms and car- 
ried direct to the miller, ground and brought 
home, kneaded by grandmother and put into 
the oven. No adulteration here, no alum, no 
ammonia, no sulphate of copper in this bread. 
Where their cider came from sweet apples 
from their own trees and -their wines direct 
from their own vineyards, our men have to 
drink concoctions of salicylic acid and count- 
less other drugs. Where their water came 
from the pure sparkling old oaken bucket with 
the blue trout sporting in the silver pebbled 
well with its frame of moss covered rocks, we 
now draw our life giving draught from dark 
muddy rivers too ofttimes polluted with foul 
sewage, dead animals, and rotten vegetation." 

"You know the reason," said Cyril, "of the 
passing of the Old Oaken Bucket, it became 



122 

so polluted that the people had to do away 
with it." 

"Quite true," answered Richard "how could' 
anything so pure live in a densely populated 
city and remain uncontaminated. The Old' 
Oaken Bucket was encompassed by evil sew- 
age, and, of course, under such abuse it be- 
came man's worst enemy as surely as it was 
his best friend under healthful conditions. This 
is the nature of man and beast, birds of the air, 
fishes of the sea, and all things. 

"You cannot find a dozen men in a thousand 
that are enjoying perfect health today. What 
a horrible tale lies behind the thousands of 
patent medicine advertisements that fill our 
newspapers and magazines, that are dropped 
at our doors, laid into our hands as we pass 
along the streets, that glare in front of us in 
the electric cars, that trail along our railroads, 
shutting out the view of our beautiful world, 
that are nailed on every old board fence, paint- 
ed on bleak rocks and old barns, and are at 
every visible point along our rivers, in fact 
they even fly them in the air far above our 



123 

city streets, throw them on the very clouds. 
Now there is a demand, else there would not 
be such a supply of these things. Of course 
there is a demand since man is making him- 
self such an easy prey to disease, and since one 
set of men in their lust for gold are handing 
out copperas, alum, chromate and sulphate of 
lead, salts of tin, gypsum, sulphuric acid, 
hydrochloric acid, china clay, caustic lime, red 
lead, etc., in our food stuffs. Of course such 
stuff as this creates a demand for patent medi- 
cines. Of course these foul drugs prepare us 
for early graves, and with our twentieth cen- 
tury civilization it is remarkable that the aver- 
age human frame reaches the age limit of 
thirty-one years under such abuse. Far better 
range our humanity out on the battlefield and 
bid them destroy each other in glorious war, 
than to kill them like cats in a bag." 

"You made the statement," said Cyril, "that 
a man's social and business status is fixed by 
conversation and association in a republic, and 
that this was more necessary to a republic than 
a monarchy where his status was looked after 



124 

by the government to some extent. Now I 
claim a man is a man under all conditions or 
should be. If you can 'jump twelve feet in 
Rhodes' why can't you jump twelve feet here?" 

"I agree with you" said Richard, "if I can 
be a man in Rhodes I can be one here. This 
is as it should be, but it is not as it is. Man is 
a mass of contradictions, and under different 
circumstances he develops himself differently. 

"In England for instance they have 'peers' 
and 'commoners.' The 'peers' have been given 
'privileges' for centuries; are considered 'bet- 
ter blood' than the common people. Their 
cast has no doubt made them as a whole better 
in culture and their experiences in higher posi- 
tions has, with the absence of bribery, due to 
their being provided for by the government, 
given them a higher sense of duty a com- 
moner would feel the high dignity of the fa- 
vored place from the top of his head to the 
sole of his feet and try very hard to make 
every one he came in contact with feel it also. 
This attitude gives the unscrupulous lobbyist 
the opportunity of paying court to him and 



125 

basking in the sunshine of his newly acquired 
fame. Thus after a time they are fast friends 
and shortly the 'necessary' is running from a 
corporation's till into the commoner's pocket 
with no disquieting questions asked, and finally 
as a report of some shady transaction is noised 
abroad and he sees his defeat at the next elec- 
tion assured, he w T ill instantly grasp every op- 
portunity to receive 'graft' before his rival 
be seated. His lack of culture narrows his 
horizon also at this junction, and he sells him- 
self to the highest bidder without the 'turn of 
a hair.' 

"While the 'peer' receiving the respect due 
his position in society all his life receives the 
new honor with the same composure that he 
shows at all times. He knows that he is a 
legitimate part of the government of the peo- 
ple, designated and honored as such, and an 
absolute necessary part of a most honest and 
stable government, and especially chosen by 
the people for centuries to perform these 
functions. This favor is in most 
cases brought about by some great 



126 

noble act in behalf of the nation in 
times of war. A brave man accomplishes a 
deed that frees the nation from a great dread, 
wins a great battle, and saves a large portion 
of the country from capture by the enemy, if 
not actually preserving the entire country 
from ultimate capture by its foes. This man 
Is rewarded by a high place in the councils of 
the country. He receives a title and it is trans- 
mitted to his offspring and they live up to the 
traditions of their ancestors to a certain de- 
gree. 

"Every student of history and every close 
observer of human nature knows what a power 
tradition has over man. The recounting of the 
noble deeds of a great grandfather or a father 
are most inspiring to a son, and he is aware 
everybody knows the brave acts of his fore- 
fathers, and have watchful eyes on him ex- 
pecting him to act like his parents if a crisis 
arises and calls for such action. 'Like father 
like son' is what they believe. He has an an- 
cestral castle with trophies of the achievements 
of those gone before him. The collection of 



127 

portraits of his noble ancestors as they appear- 
ed in life look down upon him, and he feels 
he must do as near right as he can to be worthy 
of such forefathers. He treads in their foot- 
steps. What they honored he honors, what 
they considered wrong he considers wrong. So 
as he is surrounded by every opportunity to 
fulfill his heritage he usually does, and thus the 
people are satisfied with their young lord, and 
hold him in respect as a part of their own gov- 
ernment. 

"Where in a republic, the changing of high 
officials so often tends to make the man in 
ofnce 'make hay while the sun shines' lest to- 
morrow he be deposed. This corruption be- 
comes more flagrant as the city increases in 
population. About all that two-thirds of the 
voters know about a candidate is that he is 
running for the ofnce on a certain party ticket. 
They do not know whether he is a blackguard 
or an honest man. And with the confusion 
created by party organs with all their 'mud 
slinging' a voter cannot believe 'anything he 
hears nor half he sees,' regarding the character 



128 

of a candidate. If an honest man is nominated 
for an office the opposing party will search his 
record from the cradle, and as no man is per- 
fect they find a flaw and they make a mountain 
of wickedness out of it. If a base man is 
nominated on the opposite side they can call 
him all the names they wish and be right. But 
what does he care. They have blackened the 
record of the honest man as well so he stands 
just as good a chance to be elected as though 
his own record was clean. This is the reason 
we see so many unclean men in our high places 
today. The good men will sit back and say 
'let the villains wrangle amongst themselves so 
long as they don't bother my business.' And 
as a result corruption walks ungloved in our 
land. Our men do not know each other. There- 
fore, I say conversation and association are 
necessary. We are all strangers. People in 
cities do not know their next door neighbor, 
because of a certain evil shifting population 
that roams about the country staying but a 
short time in each place. This always occurs 
where a large number of people concentrate 



129 

in a given spot. This scum always comes to 
the top and destroys the general peace of all. 

"In a country of isolated towns and hamlets 
honest men thrive because they become stable. 
They 'anchor' in one place and are governed 
by their traditions to a large extent, and are 
not corrupted by this Floating Evil. They can 
shake the hand of their neighbor and have the 
satisfaction of knowing that they are greeting 
an honest man. For have they not known him 
since his birth ? There is no smile at your face 
and stab at your back here. You know your 
man and he knows you. An ideal condition. 

"In this age nearly all our men are the per- 
sonification of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No 
doubt that is the reason of the popularity of 
this play. Man sees himself as in a mirror, 
only in a more exaggerated form and he be- 
comes pleased at the exaggeration, for he can 
say to himself T am not as bad as that anyway.' 
We are all two-faced. We are trying to be 
somebody else instead of being ourselves. How 
rarely is an honest open-hearted conscientious 
man found nowadays. And when found we 



130 

soon see that we have nothing in common with 
him in this century, and we will immediately 
proceed to divest him at once of all he posses- 
ses. We will tell him to look at the moon and 
see the woman in it and while he is looking we 
will rifle his pockets. We will shake his hand 
cordially and relieve him of his watch. We 
will sell him a 'gold brick' and take his home. 
And if he cries out that we are thieves, we will 
tell him he is 'slow' that he is 'easy.' He is 
like unto Rip Van Winkle, he has slept too 
long. We have been playing the black game 
of 'chance' for twenty years and are past mas- 
ters of the art now, while he has been sleeping. 
He belongs to the past. He cannot exist with 
his fellow men today. We are too sharp for 
him. 

"He reads a sign 'This way to a beautiful 
city' and he finds it leads him to the throne 
room of Deceit, Envy, Malice and Hatred, the 
four Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he is 
mystified with even the language of the coun- 
try. He reads a sentence from some good man's 
oration. He sees the simple truth in it at once. 



I3i 

But he afterwards hears another man read the 
same sentence and scientifically dissect it 'in 
an attempt to get at the full meaning.' The 
truth has fled. The dissection of the Word has 
been its death. This man has taken the truth 
that a moment ago was so clear and bright to 
the honest man and cast an impenetrable cloud 
over it. He has skilfully misconstrued it. Our 
language is so pliable that an evil person can 
take a true word and make it stand for his 
own bad purposes with a little 'dissection.' In 
fact, a silver-tongued orator can make him 
think that black is white. Quote every author- 
ity to convince him that he is right and make 
the honest man concede the point in the pres-. 
ence of the arguer. But on getting alone he 
thinks it over and knows that the orator is a 
liar. This power of the gilt-edge oration that 
momentarily convinced him is what we cal] 
'personal magnetism' or the power of a 'posi- 
tive' person over a 'negative' person. And 
this is so infused into the modern blood that we 
are all 'positive' we all must be great men at 
once, and we have no room for a slow honest 



132 

man. We must all be great orators, great 
thinkers. All of our opinions are of very 
great weight. We are very great. We don't 
need any ideals, tear them down, they belong 
to the simple honest man here and he is no- 
body. He don't know enough to go in when it 
rains. We know it all, and we are very prac- 
tical. We must kill the goose that lays the 
golden eggs to find the cause of her producing 
them. And in this wild clamor, this playing to 
the gallery, we lose the stable, honest, solid 
purpose of life and the dogged endurance of 
the preservers of the honor of the country is 
not here. It cannot live with such fanaticism, 
such frivolous vanity. 

"The 'practical' search of the modern man 
for the 'truth' leads him into another false 
door, that of the modern city hospital. In his 
vain search for wisdom, he has not the time to 
create a feeling of love in his near fellow 
beings, or they are occupied in the same search 
as he and cannot appreciate any of his efforts 
in this direction. And his children not being 
brought under control by him with words of 



133 

love and command as both are much needed, 
and not having time enough to satisfy his own 
search for knowledge he has none for his off- 
spring and they come to look on him as their 
credit account only. And if he be taken ill he 
is hurried to the city hospital to be practiced 
on by young doctors and trained nurses, while 
his family come to see him when they feel like 
it. Trained nurses are usually disappointed 
old maids with a grudge against humanity in 
general. It is quite evident that they are train- 
ed for the money which is in it, anyway, they 
treat him as a 'case.' No near and dear sym- 
pathy to ease his fevered brow. No 
love proved by long association and 
kind actions and true friendship such 
as the sick need and should have. 
Kind, loving care, sympathetic nature, and 
true friend in constant attendance is a 
medicine that performs more cures than all 
the doctors, nurses or drugs combined. I may 
add that sick or well, this is what all men 
crave and each one waits for his neighbor to 
prove the 'Golden Rule' and consequently he 



134 

is still waiting. We are like the Pharaoh who 
would make his bricks without straw. Our 
man is a simple 'case' in the hospital, and he 
is getting to be the same simple 'case* in all 
walks of life. Everything now must be 
gigantic. All our business is combination. 

"Our whole fabric of civilization is getting 
to be a union of violent contrasts that must re- 
sult in an explosion of greater or less dimen- 
sions. For we now have no chance for in- 
dividual worth to count. 

''Man is an atom in this masterdomic struc- 
ture, and is of little consequence from a com- 
bination point of view, and in losing his per- 
sonality he loses all that his life stands for. 
Here instinctive force compels rebellion. 

"Man is proud and when he receives his 
meat, his bread, even his religion parceled 
out to him at a stipulated time and quantity 
like a soldier's rations it wounds his vanity. 

"This handling of humanity in 'car-load lots' 
is degrading. But how else are they to be hand- 
led in a great city. They must be pushed and 
shoved and driven about like cattle. If thev 



135 

will crowd and jostle each other under a single 
apple tree, with but a single apple, when it 
falls only one gets it, and it is usually found to 
be filled with worms as all 'windfalls' are." 

"It is needless to announce," said Franklin, 
"that we all heartily concur with friend Rich- 
ard's argument." 

"It gives me pleasure," answered Richard, 
"to be able to express the opinions of all of 
you so readily, and now, gentlemen, I move 
we adjourn as it is getting late." 

The motion was unanimously carried. 

Our friends of the Sphinx Club are still en- 
gaged in searching for new truths along scien- 
tific lines, are still trying to deduct the true 
from the false. This is their relaxation from the 
strenuous life most of them lead; while they 
are all of very different natures, still they all 
enjoy with the pleasure of a Nimrod the 
"sport" of chasing after the beautiful, the sub- 
lime, but so elusive, the always new, the always 
youthful Truth, and if they capture her in one 
line of thought it matters not if she changes 
herself instantly into another form; they en- 



136 

joy their victory and put their trophy in safe 
keeping, and with light hearts take up the 
chase again, while they are not always re- 
warded by capture, they enjoy a glimpse of the 
sublime form among the black trees of the 
forest of Deceit, or find her delicate footprints 
in the mud of the Doubtful marshes ; they don't 
seem to tire of the chase ; Venner breaks away 
once in awhile, but takes up the scent after a 
brief rest, pushing after the game with in- 
creased zeal, and showing a broadening of 
thought that surprises his fellow members. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2010 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16068 
(724) 779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

EllllBllIlllIllIlllllllIII 

024 396 715 6 




